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AUTHOR: 


TEMPLE,  WILLIAM 


TITLE: 


P  LATO  AND 
CHRISTIANITY;  THREE 


PLACE: 


LONDON 


DA  TE : 


1916 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
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.88PP 
T247 


Temple,  WiUlam,  abp.  of  Canterbury,  1881-  1944 

Plato  and  Christianity ;  three  lectures  bv  Willinn,  t1«, 
pie...    London,  MacmiUan  and  coSted,  1916 

4  p.  1.,  102  p.    19-. 
^'^S'^''^:^ioTI^^;%^,^!)^J^l^^t  church.  Oxford. 
and0.rilfe5^.  °*'"^  PWlosophy.-n.  Ethics  and  poHtics.-m.  PUto 


l^Plato.    2J>hilosophy  and  religion.       i.  Title. 


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17-5705 


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PLATO  AND   CHRISTIANITY 


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1  'M 


MACMILLAN   AND   CO.,    Limited 

LONDON  .  BOMBAY  .  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE    MACMILLAN   COMPANY 


NEW   YORK 
DALLAS 


BOSTON   .   CHICAGO 
SAN   FRANCISCO 


THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Lxix 

TORONTO 


PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

LECTURE   I 

GENERAL    PHILOSOPHY 

It  is  very  difficult  to  say  what  constitutes 
the  peculiar  genius  of  any  race  or  nation,  but 
in  the  case  of  the  Ancient  Greeks  this  is  easier 
than  in  most.  We  may  perhaps  best  sum- 
marise their  predominant  characteristic  and 
their  great  gift  to  the  world  in  the  phrase, 
"  Intellectual  passion."  Both  terms  are 
necessary.  To  most  of  us  the  intellect  and 
the  search  for  truth  appear  lacking  in  human 
warmth ;  men  contrast  reason  with  intuition 
on  one  side,  and  with  feeUng  on  the  other. 
Of  course,  there  is  a  ground  for  this  contrast, 
but  in  the  great  Greeks  feeling  and  intellect 
are  united  with  astonishing  closeness.    The 

B 


2    PLATO  AND   CHRISTIANITY     i      r 

great  minds  among  them  had  a  living  passion 
for  truth,  such  as  among  us  is  only  stimulated 
as  a  rule  by  a  person  to  whom  we  are  devoted, 
or  a  practical  cause  to  which  we  have  given 
our  lives ;  the  only  metaphors  adequate  to 
describe  the  yearning  of  their  souls  for  truth 
or  the  rapture  of  attainment  are  drawn  from 
human  love  in  its  intensest  shape.  It  is  be- 
cause of  this  that  their  great  gifts  to  the  world 
are  twofold — both  scientific  and  artistic. 

The  beauty  which  they  express  is,  upon  the 
whole,  what  we  should  call  intellectual  beauty  ; 
even  in  their  subUmest  moments  they  shrink 
from  anything  that  suggests  licence  or  lack 
of  order.  Their  typical  art  is  sculpture,  and 
in  sculpture  what  happens  is  that  the  artist 
gives  significance  to  a  shapeless  mass  of 
marble,  or  whatever  it  may  be,  by  reducing 
it  within  limits  that  are  themselves  deter- 
mined by  the  principle  of  proportion.  A 
Greek  temple  gains  its  beauty  by  proportion 
and  nothing  else ;  it  has  none  of  the  wild 
efflorescence  of  Gothic  art.  This  is  partly, 
perhaps,  because  civiUsation  was  a  thing  so 
new.  so  precious,  and  so  permanently  threat- 
ened both  by  the  barbarism  of  surrounding 


I  GENERAL   PHILOSOPHY         3 

nations  and  by  the  survival  of  barbarism  in 
the  souls  of  the  Greeks  themselves,  that  they 
never  really  dared  to  let  themselves  go. 
But  this  is  not  the  whole  reason ;  it  is  also 
true  to  say  that  their  appreciation  and  love 
was  for  the  orderly,  the  coherent,  the  pro- 
portioned. Beauty  is  for  them  the  sensuous 
form  of  truth,  and  truth  is  the  indweUing  and 
vital  principle  of  beauty.  The  intuition  of 
Keats  was  quite  right  when  he  put  his 
lines — 

"  Beauty  is  truth,  truth  beauty,— that  is  all 
Ye  know  on  earth,  and  all  ye  need  to  know  " 

at  the  end  of  the  poem  on  the  "Grecian 
Urn." 

For  us  the  search  for  truth  has  become  more 
comphcated,more  scientific  and  argumentative; 
while,  so  far  at  any  rate  as  we  have  dared  to 
trust  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  the  pursuit  of 
beauty  has  become  less  restrained  and  more 
freely  impulsive.  For  the  Greeks  the  two 
things  are  almost  one ;  for  them  science  and 
art  are  as  near  together  as  they  can  ever  be. 
Truth  and  beauty  are  twin  apprehensions  of  the 
same  aspiring  intellect,  and  it  is  in  Plato  that 
this  passion  of  intellect,  at  once  in  its  scientific 

B  2 


n 


4     PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY      i 


and  in  its  artistic  forms,  reaches  its  supreme 
expression. 

Plato  was  the  disciple  of  Socrates,  and  it  is 
appropriate  to  say  something,  with  the  dog- 
matism necessary  to  brevity,  about  the  place 
of  Socrates  in  Greek  life,  a^d  the  relation  of 
Plato  to  him.  Socrates  was  regarded  by  his 
enemies  as  one  of  the  sophists.  The  sophists 
were  men  who  arose  in  response  to  the  demand 
created  by  the  growth  of  democracy ;  it 
suddenly  became  possible  for  men  to  achieve 
power  and  fame  by  influencing  their  fellow 
citizens.  In  the  law  courts  and  in  the  pubHc 
assemblies  there  was  a  great  opening  for  per- . 
suasive  speakers.  The  sophists  undertook  to 
instruct  men  in  the  art  of  success.  There  is 
an  American  advertisement  which  represents 
a  truculent  man  shaking  his  fist  in  the  reader's 
face,  and  saying — *'  I  can  make  you  a  forcible 
speaker "  ;  that  is  the  advertisement  of  a 
sophist,  though  in  all  probability  this  sophist 
is  a  quack,  while  many  of  the  Greek  sophists 
were  genuinely  great  men.  Great  as  they 
were,  however,  it  remains  true  that  their 
aim  was  to  teach  success,  and  that  only. 
The  natural  result  of  the  sharpening  of  a 


GENERAL   PHILOSOPHY 


young  man's  argumentative  power  is  that 
he  becomes  critical  of  all  conventions  which 
thwart  his  own  desires,  including  the  most 
fundamental  moral  conventions,  and  the 
influence  of  the  sophist  upon  the  young  men 
of  Greece  was  to  make  them  even  more 
rebellious  than  the  younger  generation  in- 
variably is  against  the  wisdom  of  its  elders. 
Moreover,  the  elders  had  not  been  in  the 
habit  of  asking  questions  about  these  matters, 
and  were  consequently  ill  able  to  meet  on 
intellectual  grounds  the  questions  raised  by  the 
juniors.  The  result  was  that  the  younger 
generation  began  to  break  more  and  more 
away  from  the  code  of  morality  on  which 
Greek  civilisation  rested.  The  task  of  Socrates 
was  to  insist  that  the  moral  code,  in  principle 
at  least,  is  right,  but  that  its  real  grounds  are 
not  those  conventionally  accepted.  This  was 
the  only  way  in  which  the  rising  tide  of  moral 
infideUty  could  be  stemmed ;  but  naturally 
the  respectable  old  Athenians  did  not  under- 
stand it.  When  a  man  remarked  on  the 
justice  of  Aristides  or  some  other  common- 
place, and  Socrates  would  approach  him 
with  such  words  as — "  I  am  deeply  inter- 


6     PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY     i 


GENERAL   PHILOSOPHY 


ested  in  what  you  say  ;  now  can  you  tell  me 
what  is  that  quality  in  Aristides  in  virtue  of 
which  you  call  him  just  ?  " — ^and  when  the 
respectable  Athenian  found  himself  unable  to 
give  an  answer  which  the  criticism  of  Socrates 
did  not  at  once  reduce  to  siUiness,  he  only 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  Socrates  was 
concerned  to  pour  ridicule  on  moraUty.  In 
the  end  they  condemned  him  to  death  for 
setting  up  false  gods  and  corrupting  the  young 
men.  He  is  the  first  martyr  to  intellectual 
truth,  and  his  martyrdom  is  the  most  in- 
fluential single  event  in  the  history  of  in- 
tellectual progress. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  determine  whether 
or  not  Socrates  was  himself  a  great  philosopher. 
It  depends  upon  the  view  we  take  of  the 
respective  merits,  from  an  historical  point  of 
view,  of  Plato  and  Xenophon.  Considerable 
reason  has  lately  been  shown  for  holding  that 
the  Platonic  works  down  to,  and  including, 
the  Republic  and  PhaedruSy  and  even  the 
ThecBtetus,  are  to  be  traced  to  Socrates  him-* 
seH,  and  that  Plato's  independent  develop- 
ment only  starts  with  the  Parmenides  and  the 
Sophist.    The  view  which  has  been  traditional 


I 


in  England  is  rather  that  the  philosphy  of  the 
Platonic  Dialogues  is  only  Socratic  down  to 
the  end  of  the  Protagoras,    On  the  former 
view,  Socrates  must  be  regarded,  not  only 
as  a  mart)nr  to  the  philosophic  cause,  but  also 
as   himself   a   supremely   great   philosopher. 
According  to  the  latter  and  more  traditional 
view,  his  contribution  was  little  more  than  the 
impetus  which  he  gave  to  his  disciples,  and 
particularly  to  Plato.     I  shall  myself  follow 
this  traditional  view,  not  so  much  because  I 
feel  convinced  of  its  truth,  though  my  in- 
cUnation  is  in  that  direction,  but  because  it 
enables  us  more  easily  than  the  other  to  take 
the  works  of  Plato  as  they  stand,  without 
discussing    at    any    given   point   where   the 
independent    thought    of    Plato    starts,    for, 
according  to  this  view,   all  the  really  im- 
portant Dialogues  represent  such  independent 
thought.    After  all,   the   question  of  origin 
is  mainly  one  of  antiquarian  interest.    For  us 
the  works  of  Plato  are  a  complete  whole  which 
we  can  read  and  study.    Socrates  left  no 
writings.    It  is  the  living  thought  which  is  of 
consequence   to   us,    not   the   question  who 
should  have  the  credit  for  it.    We  will  there- 


If 


f 


8     PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY     i 

fore  take  the  Dialogues  as  they  stand  and  try 
to  summarise  their  leading  points. 

Aristotle  tells  us  in  the  first  book  of  his 
Metaphysics  that  Plato  was  a  disciple,  not 
only  of  Socrates,  but  also  of  Cratylus.  From 
Socrates,  he  learned  to  look  for  definitions 
and  to  pursue  inquiry  by  means  of  relevant 
instances  ;  and  from  Socrates  also  he  learned 
to  beUeve  in  the  certainty  of  our  knowledge 
of  moral  principles.  Cratylus  was  himself  a 
disciple  of  Heraclitus,  and  from  him  Plato 
learned  to  beUeve  in  the  universal  flux  of  the 
whole  phenomenal  world.  The  development 
of  his  thought  may  be  regarded  as  a  product 
of  the  collision  between  Socrates'  doctrine 
of  moral  certainty  and  HeracUtus'  doctrine 
of  universal  flux.  We  have  become  quite 
used  to  this  latter  idea  ;  we  have  found  that 
in  practice  it  does  not  make  life  insecure  nor 
any  more  transitory  than  it  would  be  if  the 
perpetual  change  of  physical  objects  had  never 
been  discovered  at  all.  But  this  was  not  so 
at  first ;  in  the  early  days  men  were  ex- 
ceedingly perplexed  as  to  the  possibiUty  of  any 
knowledge  or  certainty  in  a  perpetually  chang- 
ing world.    We  have  become  indifferent  to  the 


I  GENERAL   PHILOSOPHY         9 

problem,  but  the  problem  is  still  there,  and 
every  now  and  then  some  new  appUcation  of 
the  law  of    fiux  raises  it  again  in  an  acute 
form.    For  example,  when  Darwin  suddenly 
popularised  the  idea  of  biological  evolution, 
it  seemed  to  very  many  people  that  everything 
was  now  reduced  to  a  transition  from  one 
phase  to   another.   ^Morality  was  merely  a 
convention  of  the  passing  period ;   it  had  no 
permanent   significance   or   application.    We 
have  again  largely  outgrown  this  perplexity, 
but  again  it  is  rather  through  becoming  in- 
different to  it  than  through  properly  solving 
it ;   the  problem  is  still  there.     It  is  because 
of  this  combination  of  ideas,  due  to  Socrates  ^ 
on  the  one  hand  and  to  Cratylus  on  the  other, 
that  Plato,  in  the  words  of  Edward  Caird, 
"  did  more  than  anyone  else  before  or  since 
to  open  up  all  the  questions  with  which  the  ^ 
philosophy  of  religion  has  to  deal." 

While  still  entirely  under  the  Socratic  influ- 
ence, Plato  begins  with  the  question  so  com- 
monly asked  in  Greece— Can  virtue  be  taught  ? 
This  is  the  problem  of  the  Protagoras,  It 
has  been  pointed  out  that  in  that  Dialogue 
Socrates,    though    victorious    of    course    in 


7- 


10    PLATO  AND   CHRISTIANITY 


GENERAL   PHILOSOPHY        11 


dialectic,  concludes  by  establishing  the  oppo- 
site position  to  that  which  he  had  set  out 
to  defend,  while  Protagoras  himself  has 
similarly  changed  his  ground.  This  suggests 
that  Plato  at  this  date  is  already  feeling  the 
need  of  passing  beyond  the  historic  teaching  of 
Socrates. 

In  the  next  Dialogue,  the  Meno,  he  continues 
the  same  subject.  His  conclusion  here  is  that 
most  virtue  is  based  on  opinion  only,  not  upon 
knowledge.  Knowledge  is  distinguished  from 
right  opinion  simply  by  the  thinking  out  of  its 
ground.  When  we  know,  we  not  only  believe 
what  is  in  fact  true,  but  we  are  able  to  say 
why  it  is  true.  For  practical  purposes,  right 
opinion  is  entirely  equivalent  to  knowledge 
while  it  lasts.  If  I  want  to  know  the  road  to 
Larissa  or  to  Abingdon  and  ask  a  passer-by, 
he  may  possibly  say— "  That  is  the  road: 
I  know,  because  I  have  just  come  along  it  "  ; 
or  he  may  only  be  able  to  say  "  I  think  it  is 
that  road."  Supposing  that  he  is  right,  his 
opinion  is  as  good  a  guide  as  his  knowledge 
would  have  been.  But  opinion  is  unstable ; 
it  may  easily  be  changed,  and  a  right  opinion 
which  can  give  no  reasoned  justification  for 


M 


/ 


I 


\ 


If 


4 


itself  is  therefore  a  precarious  basis  for  life. 
This,  then,  is  the  answer  to  the  question — 
"  Why  have   not   the   men  of   great  virtue 
imparted     their     virtue     to     their     sons  ?  " 
It  is  because  they  were  good  through  right 
opinion   only,   and   not  through   knowledge. 
They  could  not  give  the  reason  for  their 
principles  of  action,  and  consequently,  while 
they  had  virtue  in  themselves,  they  could  not 
convince  others  of  its  claim.     Here  for  the 
moment  the  question  is  dropped ;    but  most 
characteristically   the    new-found  distinction 
between  knowledge  and  opinion  is  immediately 
applied  to  politics  in  the  Gorgias.    But  here 
the  reflection  has  gone  further;     it  is  no 
longer  admitted  that  the  great  statesmen  of 
Athens  had  virtue   at   all ;    they   were   not 
even  really  statesmen ;    for  they  did  not  fill 
the  city  with  its  true  treasures,  which  are 
Temperance    and     Justice,    but    only    with 
harbours,  war-ships  and  tribute,  and  rubbish 
of  this  character.      Socrates  himself  is  the 
only  real    statesman,  for  only  he  has  even 
tried  to  base  political  action  upon  rational 
principle  (517-522). 

The    Meno,    besides    containing   the    first 


12    PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY     iyjBi         GENERAL   PHILOSOPHY 


13 


definite  distinction  between  knowledge  and 
opinion,  also  sets  the  problem  how  it  is  possible 
to  learn  anything.    I  set  out  in  search  of  some 
idea  which  is  to  be  the  solution  of  a  per- 
plexity ;    but  either  I  already  know  that  of 
which  I  am  in  search,  or  else  I  do  not ;    if 
I  know  it,  the  search  is  endless,  and  if  I  do 
not  know  it,  it  is  futile,  for  I  should  not. 
recognise  the  object  of  the  search  even  if  I 
came  upon  it.     The  answer  to  this  is  somewhat 
starthng.    Without   argument   Plato   throws 
down    the    tremendous    dogma,    and    that,  ; 
moreover,  as  it  were  by  the  way  in  a  sub-  ' 
ordinate  clause — "/Seeing  that  nature  is  all 
of  it  akin."    (81  c.) 

The  result  of  this  kinship  in  all  nature  is  , 
that  there  is  a  genuine  connection  between 
any  one  apprehended  fact  or  truth  and  all 
other  facts  and  truths.    Consequently,   the 
presence  in  the  mind  of  any  apprehension  may    ^ 
give  rise  to  the  grasp  of  kindred  truths.    He    < 
goes  further ;    inasmuch  as  before  birth  the 
soul  in  the  spiritual  world  has  had  a  vision  of 
all  truth,  but  has  at  birth  forgotten  it,  the    i 
perception  of  the  various  facts  which  con- 1 
stitute  our  experience  may  revive  in  the  mind 


.) 


a  recollection  of  the  kindred  facts,  which  in 
I  that  pre-natal  vision  the  soul  had  apprehended. 
[Knowledge,  in  other  words,  is  recollection. 
The  evidence  of  this  is  a  dialogue  between 
Socrates  and  a  slave  boy,  from  whom,  by 
[means  of  extraordinarily  leading  questions, 
[Socrates  succeeds  in  educing  mathematical 
knowledge  which  the  boy  had  never 
Jearned.^ 

This  doctrine  of  "recollection,"  however, 
does  not  supply  knowledge  with  an  adequate 
object ;  the  empirical  facts,  which  are  the 
occasion  of  the  recollection,  belong  to  the 
world  of  flux,  but  it  is  not  possible  that  the 
object  of  knowledge  should  itself  be  per- 
petually changing,  for  if  it  were,  the  knowledge 
would  become  false — that  is,  ignorance — ^in 
the  very  process  of  its  own  formation.  In 
the  Cratylus  the  two  persons  who  carry  on  the 
discussion  are. Cratylus  and  Socrates,  that  is 
to  say  the  two  men  from  whom,  according  to 
Aristotle,  Plato  received  his  own  philosophic 


1  It  may  be  worth  while  in  passing  to  note  the  fact  that 
the  boy  answers  in  a  straightforward  way  so  long  as  his 
answers  seem  to  be  right,  but  on  discovering  that  they  are 
not,  at  once  starts  swearing,    ov  yM  Aia  (83  b.) 


14    PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY    i 

training — Socrates,  from  wliom  he  had  learned 
to  beUeve  in  the  possibility  of  knowledge,  at 
least  in  the  moral  sphere,  and  Cratylus,  from 
whom  he  had  learned  to  beheve  in  the  incessant 
changefulness  of  all  empirical  facts.  At  the 
end  of  this  dialogue  Socrates  raises  the  question 
whether  there  are  eternal  forms  or  ideas, 
which  remain  themselves  absolutely  unchanged 
while  various  physical  objects  conform  to 
them  in  greater  or  less  degree  as  their  changeful 
process  runs  its  course.  The  existence  of  these 
forms  or  ideas  is  something  which  Socrates, 
says  he  often  dreams  to  be  true,  but  there  is 
no  definite  assertion  of  the  doctrine,  and  the 
dialogue  ends  with  the  statement  that 
perhaps  they  exist  and  perhaps  they  do  not. 
(440  d.) 

It  is  also  noticeable  that  in  this  dialogue 
the  idea  seems  to  be,  not  an  independent 
entity,  but  a  teleological  principle.  The 
form  of  the  shuttle  is  simply  that  which  will 
meet  the  weaver's  purpose.  (389  b.) 
\  In  the  Symposium  the  atmosphere  is  quite 
different,  and  the  same  is  true  of  the  Phaedo, 
Here  there  is  no  doubt  at  all  about  the  ex- 
istence of  the  eternal  Ideas.    Either  Plato 


u 


I         GENERAL   PHILOSOPHY       15 

now  reaches  this  beUef  himself,  or  else  he  now 
gives  it  an  entirely  new  prominence ;  for  a 
mere  outUne  understanding  of  his  thought 
such  as  we  are  attempting,  it  does  not  very 
much  matter  which.  Proper  study  leads  to  an 
apprehension  of  the  Ideas  by  the  pure  in- 
[tellect,  and  therein  to  a  perfect  satisfaction 
of  the  soul.  The  language  used,  both  of  the 
apprehension  itself  and  of  the  satisfaction 
which  it  brings,  is  the  language  of  rapture  and 
ecstasy.  This  is  largely  borrowed  from  the 
experience  of  those  who  were  initiated  in  the 
mysteries  at  Eleusis.  In  the  Symposium, 
Plato  speaks  in  such  as  way  as  to  suggest 
that  he  had  himself  received  a  vision  of  the 
perfect  beauty.  I  have  attempted  elsewhere 
(Mind,  N.S.  XVII,  p.  502)  to  give  an  account 
of  the  psychological  occasion  of  this  vision 
and  the  particular  influence  which  it  may  have 
had  upon  the  line  of  his  philosophic  thought. 
The  other  Dialogue  which  most  definitely 
suggests  the  occurrence  of  such  a  vision  is  the 
Phaedrus,  It  is  of  some  interest  to  notice 
that  another  man  of  genius,  not  imUke  Plato 
in  some  points  of  his  temperament,  has  re- 
corded   a    similar    experience.    In    Shelley's 


16    PLATO  AND   CHRISTIANITY    i 


GENERAL   PHILOSOPHY 


17 


N 


Hymn    to    Intellectical    Beauty    these    lines 
occur — 


Spirit  of  Beauty,  that  dost  consecrate 

With  thine  own  hues  all  thou  dost  shine  upon 

Of  human  thought  or  form, — ^where  art  thou  gone  ? 

Why  dost  thou  pass  away  and  leave  our  state. 

This  dim  vast  vale  of  tears,  vacant  and  desolate  ? 
Ask  why  the  sunlight  not  for  ever 
Weaves  rainbows  o*er  yon  moimtain  river. 

Why  aught  should  fail  and  fade  that  once  is  shown, 
Why  fear  and  dream  and  death  and  birth 
Cast  on  the  daylight  of  this  earth 
Such  gloom, — ^why  man  has  such  a  scope 

For  love  and  hate,  despondency  and  hope  ? 

Love,  Hope,  and  Self-esteem,  like  clouds  depart 

And  come,  for  some  uncertain  moments  lent, 

Man  were  immortal,  and  omnipotent. 
Didst  thou,  unknown  and  awful  as  thou  art. 
Keep  with  thy  glorious  train  firm  state  within  his  heart. 

Thou  messenger  of  sympathies. 

That  wax  and  wane  in  lovers*  eyes — 
Thou — that  to  human  thought  art  nourishment. 

Like  darkness  to  a  d3dng  flame  ! 

Depart  not  as  thy  shadow  came. 

Depart  not — ^lest  the  grave  should  be, 
Like  life  and  fear,  a  dark  reality. 

While  yet  a  boy  I  sought  for  ghosta,  and  sped 

Thro'  many  a  listening  chamber,  cave  and  ruin, 
And  starlight  wood,  with  fearful  steps  pursuing 

Hopes  of  high  talk  with  the  departed  dead. 

I  cetUed  on  poisonous  names  with  which  our  youth  is  fed; 
I  was  not  heard — I  saw  them  not — 
When  musing  deeply  on  the  lot 


(( 


Of  life,  at  the  sweet  time  when  winds  are  wooing 
All  vital  things  that  wake  to  bring 
News  of  birds  and  blossoming, — 
Sudden,  thy  shadow  fell  on  me  ; 

I  shrieked,  and  clasped  my  hands  in  ecstasy  t 

I  vowed  that  I  would  dedicate  my  powers 

To  thee  and  thine — have  I  not  kept  the  vow  ? 


») 


But  whatever  the  occasion,  whether  there 

ras  any  actual  vision  or  not,  at  least  belief 

fill  the  eternal  Ideas  becomes  now  the  governing 

principle  of  Plato's  thought.     In  the  Sym- 

fosium  (210  a-211  c)  he  describes  the  ascent 

of    the    soul    towards    the    perfect    beauty ; 

suddenly,  he  says,  she  will  behold  something 

marvellously  beautiful,  not  beautiful  by  parts 

or  by  seasons  as  is  the  case  with  material 

beauty,  but  itself  abiding  true  to  itself  for 

ever.     This  is  very  different  from  the  tentative 

[language  about  the  absolute  Idea  with  which 

[the  Cratylus  closed.     In  both  Dialogues  in 

which  the  eternal  Ideas  first  appear  in  this 

liconspicuous  position,  they  are  associated  with 

"the   thought   of   immortaUty.    In  the  Sym- 

{'posium  the  association  is  comparatively  little 

stressed.    In  the  Phaedo  it  is  the  main  theme 

of  the  Dialogue.     The  capacity  to  apprehend 

the    eternal    Ideas    marks    the   soul   off   as 

c 


18    PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY     iWt         GENERAL   PHILOSOPHY 


19 


akin  to  the  eternal  world,  which  is  its  real 
home.  t 

Just   as   the  discovery   of  the   differences 
between    **  knowledge  "    and    *'  opinion  "    iv 
the  Meno  had  been  immediately  applied  tc 
problems   of   statesmanship   in   the   Gorgias 
so  the  new  conviction  concerning  the  eterna 
Ideas  is  made  the  basis  of  a  philosophy  o\ 
statesmanship    in    Plato's    masterpiece — ^the 
Republic, 

The  Phaedo  had  asserted  that  the  true 
method  of  explanation  is  teleology,  that  is 
to  say,  the  exposition  of  the  purpose  which 
determines  the  thing  being  what  it  is.  With 
the  characteristic  honesty  which  leads  Plato 
always  to  offer  an  extreme  instance,  he  now 
illustrates  his  meaning  by  desiring  that  some- 
one should  prove  whether  the  world  is  round 
or  flat  by  demonstrating  that  one  or  the  other 
is  better ;  for  whichever  is  better,  that  it  will  be. 
{Phaedo  97  d,  e.)  In  the  Republic  this  principle 
becomes  the  metaphysical  background  of  all 
his  poUtical  thought.  The  Ideas  are  all  of 
them  subordinate  to  a  supreme  Idea — the 
Idea  of  Good.  The  statesman,  therefore,  is 
to  be  so  trained  that  he  may  apprehend  this 


'supreme  principle  of  the  universe,  and  may 

then  so  govern  his  state  that  he  will  cause  it 

to  fulfil  its  true  place  in  the  universe  which 

that    supreme    Idea    controls.     The   relation 

of  his   pohtics   and   ethics   to   his   ultimate 

|philosophy  must  concern  us  more  precisely 

lin  the  next  lecture  ;  at  present  it  will  be  best 

;  to  illustrate,  as  far  as  we  can,  what  he  means 

jby  an  Idea.  [An  Idea  is  the  most  real  things 

I  in  the  world  ;  it  is  that  by  conformity  to  which 

'all  physical  objects  have  their  qualities  ;  it  is 

that  in  physical  objects  which  the  mind  grasps  ; 

and  it  is  the  perfect  satisfaction  of  the  mind 

[tJat  grasps  it.     To  these  four  functions  of  the 

[dea    we    have    four   corresponding    EngUsh 

rords— Fact,  Law,  Meaning,  and  Truth.    Let 

^us  consider  the  Idea  in  each  of  these  functions^/ 

(a)  The  Idea  of  Justice  which  he  is  seeking 
J  in  the  Republic  then  becomes  what  we  may  call 
Ithe  Fact  of  Justice.  When  we  use  this  phrase 
Iwe  do  not  simply  refer  to  the  just  quahty  of 
jjust  acts  ;  one  might  say,  for  example,  "  the 
fact  of  the  justice  in  the  world  makes  the 
[pursuit  of  selfish  ends  a  fool's  game";  or 
we  might  say— "  the  fact  of  generosity  is 
itself  the  refutation  of  cynicism."    In  each  of 

c  2 


20    PLATO  AND   CHRISTIANITY    i  r' 


GENERAL   PHILOSOPHY        21 


these    two    sentences    what    we    should    beli 
insisting  upon  would  not  be  the  just  quaUty, 
or  the  generous  quality,  of  certain  acts  orsj 
powers,  but  the  reahty  of  the  justice  and  of 
the  generosity,  and  this  particularly  as  throw- 
ing  Ught  upon  the  scheme  of  reality  as  a  whole. 
If  love  is  real,  the  whole  world  is  different 
from  what  it  would  be  if  love  were  not  real. 
How  different,  is  a  question  stiU  to  be  deter-  ^} 
mined ;  but  such  a  phrase  as  "  the  fact  of  love," 
as  of  justice  or  generosity  above,  would  only  j 
be  used  by  someone  who  wished  to  imply 
certain  inferences  with  regard  to  reality  at 
large. 

(b)  We  are  all  familiar  with  the  conception 
of  Laws  of  Nature,  for  example,  the  Law  of' 
Gravitation.    But  no  one  has  ever  experi- 
enced a  Law  of  Nature ;  they  are  grasped  by 
the   mind   only.      And   there   are    some    of 
them,  as  I  am  assured  by  students  of  science, 
which  never  can  represent  any  actual  facts  ;j| 
and  yet  they  are  true.    The  Law  of  Gravita-I] 
tion  itself,  for  example,  only  acts  in  co-opera-  J 
tion  with  other  laws  or  forces,  e.g.,  friction  and 
the  like.    No  one  ever  saw  it  at  work  in  its 
purity.    I  remember  once  asking  a  scientific 


ffriend  about  a  Law  which  I  believe  is  known  as 
Boyle's  Law  of  Gases;  I  asked  whether  all  gases 
really  behaved  exactly  as  the  Law  described 
them,  and  he  replied — "  Oh  no  !  none  of 
them  do  ;  they  would  not  be  gases  if  they  did." 
And  yet  the  Law  is  a  true  Law ;  only  some- 
thing else  about  the  gas  prevents  it  from  quite 
coming  off  ;  the  particular  never  reahses  the 
idea.  I  must  add  that  I  know  nothing  con- 
cerning gases  on  my  own  account,  and  I 
always  have  a  shrewd  suspicion  that  the 
students  of  science  spend  their  time  in  pulling 
the  leg  of  the  lay  public. 

(c)  Meaning  is  something  which  the  mind 
grasps  on  the  occasion  of  certain  experiences 
of  the  senses,  but  which  the  senses  themselves 
can  never  reach.  Physically  regarded,  the 
Plays  of  Shakespeare  consist  entirely  of 
twenty-six  curiously  shaped  black  marks  on 
white  paper,  arbitrarily  arranged.  Anyone 
who  did  not  know  English  might  look  at  the 
printer's  ink  for  ever  and  ever  without  getting 
any  further ;  but  on  the  occasion  of  seeing 
this  printer's  ink  arranged  in  curious  shapes 
the  mind  of  an  Enghsh  reader  grasps  the 
meaning  of  Shakespeare.    The  meaning  then 


22    PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY     it' 

is  in  some  sense  contained  in  the  physical  fact,  3 
but  it  is  certainly  not  the  same  as  the  physical 
fact.  So  people  ask  with  regard  to  the  war — 
**  What  is  the  meaning  of  such  things  happen- 
ing in  God's  world  ?  "  The  facts  are  certain 
enough  ;  the  meaning  seems  to  be  something 
other  than  facts. 

(d)  All  this  is  most  of  all  conspicuous  in 
relation  to  Truth^  When  people  ask  for  the 
real  Truth  about  the  world,  or  about  hfe,  they 
are  wanting  something  beyond  what  their 
experience  has  given  them ;  otherwise  they 
would  not  ask,  and  there  would  be  no  philo- 
sophy and  no  art.  The  truth  of  the  world 
must  be  the  interpretation  of  experience,  no 
doubt,  but  it  is  something  which  in  our  ordinary 
work-a-day  experience  we  have  not  found. 

When,  then,  we  consider  the  four  great 
functions  of  the  Platonic  Idea,  we  see  easily 
enough  that  Plato  had  full  warrant  for  in- 
sisting that  it  is  something  distinct  from  the 
physical  reaUty  which  partially  embodies  it, 
and  that  it  must  be  grasped  by  the  mind  alone 
and  can  never  be  reached  by  the  senses. 

The  eternal  Ideas  which  are  thus  appre- 
.hended  by  the  intellect  supply  the  object  of 


1 


GENERAL    PHILOSOPHY 


23 


knowledge  which  could  not  be  found  in  the 
perpetually  changing  material  world.  Con- 
cerning everything  that  belongs  to  this  terres- 
trial existence  we  can  never  have  real  know- 
ledge, but  only  opinion.  In  the  Meno  the 
difference  between  right  opinion  and  know- 
ledge had  consisted  in  the  addition  to  the 
former  of  its  ground,  but  now  the  two  have 
different  spheres  altogether,  and  it  is  only 
.  of  the  intellectual  world  that  knowledge  is 
'  possible.  The  relation  between  the  Ideas  and 
'  their  Particulars  is  at  this  stage  described 
under  three  figures  :  (a)  the  Particular  par- 
I  ticipates  in  the  Idea  (Symposium,  211  b) ; 
(6)  The  Idea  is  present  in  the  Particular 
{Phaedo,  100  d) ;  (c)  The  Particular  imitates 
the  Idea  (Republic,  X,  597,  598).  In  this  last 
book  of  the  Republic,  for  the  first  time  since 
the  explicit  formulation  of  the  ideal  theory 
of  the  Symposium  and  Phaedo  we  are  con- 
fronted with  Ideas,  not  only  of  attributes 
such  as  the  "  beautiful,"  the  "  just,"  and  the 
like,  but  of  things  such  as  a  "  bed."^  Plato 
there  speaks  of  the  ideal  bed  which  is  the 
creation  of  God,  and  in  imitation  of  which  the 

^  But  ef.  the  ideal  shuttle  in  the  Cratylua, 


24    PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY 

carpenter,  or  whoever  else  it  may  be,  makes  a 
material  bed.     (We  note  in  passing  how  all 
this  is    preparing    for   the   line    of   thought 
•  famihar  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  con- 
cerning   the    Heavenly    Tabernacle    and   its 
earthly    counterpart.)     We  shall    see    in    a 
moment   that    this    development,    while    in- 
herent in  the  logic  of  the  whole  Ideal  theory, 
none  the  less  prepares  the  way  for  a  great/ 
change  which  was  to  come  over  Plato's  philo-' 
sophy ;  but  not  yet.     The  Phaedrus  belongs  to' 
the  same  date  as  the  Republic  ;  the  great  myth, 
which  is  its  supreme  glory,  shows  just  that ' 
combination  of  philosophic  grasp  and  poetic 
intuition  which  is  the  great  characteristic  of  • 
this  period  in  Plato's  work ;  but  the  Dialogue 
ends  with  an  expression  of  despair  concerning 
philosophic  writing,  and  it  would  seem  that 
after  it  there  was  a  long  pause. 

The  next  Dialogue  in  date  is  probably  the 
Thewtetus,  but  it  may  be  the  Parmenides, 
which  belongs  to  the  same  period.  Let  us 
take  the  latter  first  for  convenience  in  ex-  » 
position.  In  Repitbli^,  Book  X,  there  had 
appeared  the  argument  known  as  the  rplro^ 
d.^fHoiro,  argument.    The  argument  was  there 


i 


I 


I         GENERAL    PHILOSOPHY        25 

introduced  to  prove  that  each  Idea  is  single, 
for  if  there  were  two,  this  would  not  be  the 
real  Idea,  which  would  appear  behind  them 
as  the  principle  of  their  unity ;  e.g.,  if  we  sup- 
pose two  ideal  beds,  we  shall  have  to  suppose 
another  which  gives  to  each  its  character, 
and  this  will  be  the  real  Idea.     (597  c). 

In  the  Parmenides  this  same  argument  is 
applied  with  ruinous  effect  to  a  certain  form 
of  the  Ideal  theory  itself  (132  a),  for  a  third 
Idea  is  wanted  connecting  the  Idea  with  its 
Particulars,  and  so  ad  infinitum.  The  same 
fate  awaits  the  extension  made  in  Republic,  X, 
of  the  Ideal  theory  to  physical  objects.  He 
asserts  there  the  existence  of  the  Ideal  bed. 
But  this,  too,  leads  to  absurdities.  In  the 
Parmenides  (130  c)  Socrates  confesses  per- 
plexity as  to  whether  there  are  Ideas  of  Man, 
Fire,  Water,  and  so  on,  and  himself  urges 
that  to  maintain  the  existence  of  Ideal  Hair 
or  Ideal  Mud  would  be  to  fall  into  an  abyss 
of  absurdity.  We  see  then  that  two  of  the 
developments  contained  in  Republic,  X,  supply 
the  occasion  for  attack  on  a  certain  form  of 
Ideal  theory,  which  attack  is  developed  in  the 
Parmenides ;    moreover,  I  believe  this  forin 


■'M 


26    PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY     i 

to  be  one  which  Plato  himself  had  at  least 
provisionally   held.     Socrates,    the    represen- 
tative of  the  Ideal  theory,  is  here  defeated  in 
the  argument.    Surely  it  is  legitimate  to  infer 
that  the  Ideal  theory  here  refuted— refuted  by 
Parmenides  and  upheld  by  Socrates— is  meant 
to  be  that  which  in  former  Dialogues  Socrates 
has    so    often    maintained.     Moreover,    the 
precise  point  of  attack  in  the  Parmenides  is  the 
relation  between  the  Ideas  and  Particulars, 
and  especially  three  theories  of  this  relation^ 
namely,  those  of  the  Symposium,  the  Phaedo, 
and  the  Republic,  mentioned  above. 

We  are  therefore  not  surprised  that  in  the 
^he(Btetus,  which  belongs  to  the  same  period, 
a  wholly  new  start  is  made  with  regard  to  the 
question—"  What  is  knowledge  ?  "  Whether 
we  call  this  the  new  Platonism,  or  the  first 
genuine  Platonism,  will  depend  upon  our  views 
about  the  responsibility  of  Socrates  or  Plato 
for  the  doctrines  mentioned  hitherto.  At  any 
rate,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  from  this 
time  onwards,  Plato's  thought  makes  a  new 
start  and  follows  a  new  Hne.  The  Thewtetus 
begins  with  the  question—"  What  ib  know- 
ledge ?  "    Ite  main  contribution  is  to  be  found 


I  GENERAL   PHILOSOPHY        27 

in  its  assertion  of  certain  known  principles 
which  qualify  all  experience  (184-186).  These 
are  "  being  "  and  '*  not-being,"  "  likeness  " 
and  "  un-likeness,"  "  identity  "  and  "  differ-  \ 
ence,"  "  unity "  and  "  plurality."  It  is 
maintained  that  inasmuch  as  these  are  applic- 
able to  the  objects  of  all  the  several  senses, 
they  cannot  be  actually  received  through 
sensation.  They  are  principles  belonging  to 
the  mind  itself,  which  is  thus  shown  to  be  one 
and  the  same  agent  in  all  acts  of  sensation — 
seeing,  hearing,  smelling,  and  the  Uke.  It  will 
be  noticed  that  in  this  argument  Plato  has 
anticipated  the  Kantian  theory  of  Categories 
and  of  the  Unity  of  Apperception.  It  is 
curious  that  this  great  argument  should  have 
lain  for  all  the  centuries  almost  unheeded  until 
Kant  set  it  forth  with  far  less  lucidity  than  f 
Plato.  The  fact  is  that  here,  as  so  often, 
Plato's  grasp  of  the  problem  is  so  direct  and 
complete,  that  men  whose  minds  are  less  clear 
do  not  realise  that  he  has  handled  it  at  all. 
When  the  argument  is  developed  in  a  couple 
of  hundred  pages  it  begins  to  impress  us ; 
when  its  essence  is  stated  in  two  pages  we  have 
not  yet  reached  the  problem  by  the  time  that 


28    PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY 


GENERAL    PHILOSOPHY 


29 


Plato  has  given  a  solution  and  passed  on. 
While  I  am  dealing  with  the  capacity  of  Plato's 
insight  to  leap  the  centuries  and  anticipate 
the  greatest  advances  of  modern  philosophy, 
.•11,^1  must  allude  to  the  section  of  the  Sophist, 
where,  reviving  the  problem  of  error  from  the 
Thewtetus  (188-200),  he  solves  it  by  means  of 
a  doctrine  of  negation  which  anticipates  what 
we  often  regard  as  Hegel's  chief  contribution 
to  Logic  (236-260). 
y     We  may  now  sum  up  the  results  of  this 
discussion.    Plato  begins  with  the  conviction 
that  man  possesses  moral  knowledge.     This  at 
once  impUes  the  existence  of  a  permanent 
object  of  knowledge,  at  least  in  the  moral 
sphere,  but  our  ordinary  experience  does  not 
itself  give  the  ground  for  such  knowledge  ;  it 
is  itself  perpetually  changing  and  it  does  not 
perfectly  represent  the  principles  of  which  it  is 
the  expression.     The  truth  which  corresponds 
to  real  knowledge  is  only  found  by  deeper 
insight  and  wider  apprehension  than  is  obtain- 
able  at   the    level    of    ordinary    experience. 
At  the  crown  of  the  whole  system  as  repre- 
sented in  the  Republic  is  the  Idea  of  Good ; 
whether  or  not  Plato  thought  of  this  as  some- 


\ 


thing   personal   when   writing   the    Republic, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  later  on  his  supreme 
principle   is   the   purpose    or   thought   of   a 
Living  God.    So  he  exclaims  in  the  Sophist 
(248  e) :    "  Can  we  ever  be  made  to  believe 
that  motion,  and  life,  and  soul,  and  mind,  are 
not    present    with    perfect    being  ?     Can  we 
imagine  that  being  is  devoid  of  life  and  mind, 
and  exists  in  awful  unmeaningness,  an  ever- 
lasting  fixture  ?  "     Again,    in    the    Philebus 
(30  c),  we  find  him  speaking  of  the  "  royal 
mind  of  Zeus."    In  the  myth  of  the  Timceus, 
written  near  the  end  of  his  life,  he  tells  us  that 
God  made  the  world  because  He  was  free  from 
all  jealousy,  and  desired  to  share  His  own 
perfection  as  widely  as  possible  (29  e).  |  Per- 
haps the  greatest  height  that  he  ever  reaches 
is  in  the  Thecetetus  (176  a,  b),  where  he  says 
that  the  wisdom  of  man  is  to  fly  from  this 
world  to  the  spiritual  world,  and  this  flight 
consists  in  becoming  holy  and  just  and  good. 
''  Evils  cannot  perish,  Theodorus,  for  there 
must  always  be  something  opposing  good,  nor 
can  they  find  their  place  among  the  gods, 
but  they  attend  of  necessity  upon  our  mortal 
nature  and  this  terrestrial  sphere.    We  should 


f\\r 


/ 


s 


30    PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY    i 

endeavour  to  flee  from  this  region  to  that  with 
all  speed  ;  and  by  flight  is  meant  a  resemblance 
to  God  as  far  as  is  possible  ;   but  to  resemble 
Him  is  to  become  just  and  holy  with  wisdom. 
Indeed  it  is  no  easy  task,  my  friend,  to  per- 
suade men  that  the  majority  are  wrong  in  the 
reason  which  they  assign  for  fleeing  wicked- 
ness,   and    pursuing    virtue:—!    mean,    the 
avoidance  of  a  bad  reputation,  or  the  acquire- 
ment of  a  good  one  ;  this,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is 
an  '  old  wives'  tale,'  as  the  saying  is.     The 
truth  we  may  put  in  this  way.    (God  is  in  m 
/manner  of  way  unjust  but  utterly  and  abso- 
lutely just,  nor  is  there  anything  more  like  to 
pm  than  whosoever  among  men  becomes  as 
just  as  possible." 


LECTURE  II 


ETHICS   AND   POLITICS 


/. 


Plato  starts,  as  we  saw  in  the  last  Lecture, 
from  Socrates'  conviction  of  moral  certainty. 
Morality,  the  sphere  in  which  this  certainty  is 
found,  is  itself  the  science  or  art  of  social  life. 
The  principles  which  Socrates  regards  as  un- 
questionably knowable  are  those  which  govern 
the  relations  between  men  within  the  system 
which  is  called  Society,  the  City,  or  the  State. 
Plato's  whole  thought  on  this  subject  is  deter- 
mined by  his  belief  in  human  immortality. 
All  the  concerns  of  this  world,  public  and 
private  alike,  are  to  be  viewed  in  the  Ught  of 
eternity.  One  of  the  strongest  instances  of 
the  effect  which  this  produced  is  to  be  found  in 
his  account  of  the  life  that  the  true  philo- 
sopher should  live  in  this  wretched  world. 
"  He  will  be  like  one,"  says  Plato,   "  who 


\ 


.  ^ 


) 


■  ^ 


> 


31 


32   PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY    ii 

cowers  behind  a  wall  out  of  the  storm  of  hail 
and  sleet,  counting  himself  happy  if  he  can 
escape  unspotted  to  the  other  world." 
(496  d,  e.)^  With  this,  of  course,  we  must  con- 
trast the  duty  of  the  philosopher  in  the  ideal 
State ;  there  he  will  take  his  full  part,  de- 
serting his  contemplations  to  share  in  the 
government,  because  in  that  State  he  will  be 
genuinely  at  home. 

Politics  for  Plato  becomes,  in  consequence 
of  this  perspective,   entirely  subordinate  to 
yl    ethics.    The  State  is  to  be  so  fashioned  that 
the  influence  of  its  organisation  may  create 
in  the  souls  of  its  individual  citizens  that 
habit  and  proportion  which  is  profitable  for 
eternity.    It  is  quite  true  that  in  the  details  of 
his  political  organisation  Plato  seem^'^nSrely 
JG^imcrifice  the  individual  to^ociety ;  but  this, 
after  all,  is  in  the  end  for  the  individual's  own 
sake.    Justice  in  the  State  is  a  mere  image  of 
the  true  justice  which  is  a  condition  of  the 
individual  soul  (443  c).     The  true  criterion  of 
a  Constitution  is  to  be  found  by  asking  what 
^  training  for  eternity  it  affords.    To  make  the 

^  AU  references  in  this  Lecture  are  to  the  JRepublic  unless 
otherwise  specified. 


( 


II 


ETHICS   AND   POLITICS 


33 


matter  clear,  we  may  at  this  point  contrast 
the  view  of  Aristotle,  who  believed  indeed  in 
the  eternity  of  spirit,  but  not  at  all  in  individual 
immortality.  The  result  is  that  for  him  there 
is  nothing  beyond  the  life  of  society  by  which 
that  life  itself  is  to  be  judged.  The  test  of  a 
Constitution  would  seem  to  be  its  stability 
and  capacity  for  resisting  change ;  while  the 
ideal  life  for  man  is  something  not  socially 
serviceable  in  any  high  degree,  so  that  ethics 
and  politics  fall  right  apart.  Aristotle  seems 
to  care  more  for  the  individual,  because  he 
cares  more  for  the  individual's  temporal  con- 
cerns and  freedom,  but  inasmuch  as  he  prefers 
the  good  citizen  to  the  good  man  when  these 
two  ideals  fall  apart,  it  is  clear  that  for  him 
the  State  comes  first,  and  the  individual 
second ;  while  in  Plato  the  individual  as  an 
eternal  soul  comes  first,  and  it  is  only  his 
temporal  concerns  that  are  sacrificed  to  the 
State — ^this  sacrifice  itself  being  demanded 
for  the  sake  of  the  Individual's  eternal  welfare. 
The  ideal  method  which  Plato  would  wish  to 
apply  in  the  sphere  of  politics  and  ethics  is  that 
which  he  outlines  as  actually  at  work  in  his 
ideal  State.    Kings  are  philosophers,  but  they 


34   PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY    n 


\ 


are  ideal  philosophers ;  in  other  words,  govern- 
ment is  to  be  conducted  by  knowledge  of  the 
eternal  truth.    The  philosopher  king,  who  has 
seen  the  Idea  of  Good  which  is  the  governing 
principle  of  the  whole  universe,  will  so  order  his 
State  that  it  may  properly  discharge  its  func- 
tion as  that  function  is  determined  by  this 
^  ^supreme  Idea.    In  modern  or  Christian  terms, 
'  Plato's  demand  is  for  a  State  which  shall  be 
governed  in  all  its  details  in  accordance  with  the 
known  purpose  of  God  for  His  universe.     This 
explains  the  curious,  and  at  first  sight  bafiiing, 
extension  of  the  area  of  inquiry  in  the  Republic. 
He  begins  with  the  search  for  individual  justice 
(Book  I).    He  then  remarks  that  justice  is  a 
term  used  of  States,  not  only  of  Individuals, 
and  we  shall  see  it  on  a  larger  scale   and 
therefore  in  a  more  easily  recognisable  form  in 
the  State  than  in  the  Individual.    He  there- 
fore constructs  his  ideal  State  to  embody  the 
principle  of  justice.    Alike  in  the  State  and 
Individual  soul,  justice  turns  out  to  consist 
in  the  true  performance  of  its  own  function  by 
each  constituent  element  (Books  II-V).    But 
then  this  same  law  suddenly  expands  into  the 
governing  principle  of  the  universe,  for  the 


/ 


\ 


ii 


ETHICS   AND   POLITICS 


35 


Idea  of  Good  which  allots  to  all  other  principles 
their  sphere  of  operation  is  nothing  but 
justice  on  a  cosmic  scale  ;  and  so  through 
individual  morality.  State  organisation,  and 
ultimate  theology,  he  traces  one  principle. 
He  has  found  it  indeed  by  beginning  with  the 
individual,  but  it  is  only  perfectly  imderstood 
when  it  is  grasped  as  cosmic ;  consequently 
the  philosopher  king  must  be  trained  up  to 
that  apprehension,  and  in  the  light  of  it  will 
administer  the  State. 

From  this  it  follows  that  the  perfect  con- 
stitution and  the  perfect  science  of  politics 
alike  require  as  their  starting  point  and 
ground  a  knowledge  of  the  Idea  of  Good  ;  but 
this  knowledge  Plato  emphatically  says  that 
he  does  not  himself  possess  (506  c-507  a) .  He 
believes  that  the  most  intellectually  gifted  of 
citizens,  if  trained  according  to  his  scheme  of 
education,  and  under  the  influence  of  the  whole 
moral  atmosphere  of  his  ideal  State,  would 
attain  to  this  knowledge  and  govern  their 
State  in  the  light  of  it.  Plato  himself  must  fall 
back  upon  a  provisional  method ;  and  his 
method  in  ethics  and  politics  is  as  a  fact  not 
metaphysical  but  psychological.    A  political 

D  2 


A:. 


\ 


i 


36   PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY 


II 


II 


ETHICS   AND   POLITICS        37 


constitution,  he  says,  both  springs  from  the 
characters  of  the  citizens,  and  then  reproduces 
itself  in  those  characters  again  (435  e,  544  d, 
491  a-497  a,  547  b-580  a).  If,  for  example,  a 
State  gives  great  honour  to  wealth,  this  can 
only  be  because  the  citizens  regard  wealth  as 
of  peculiar'  importance  ;  but  children  born  in 
the  State' which  thus  honours  wealth  will  be 
led  by  its  institutions  to  pay  to  wealth  the 
same  honour.  A  plutocracy  is  bad,  not  chiefly 
because  it  is  unstable  and  liable  to  revolution, 
but  because  it  rests  upon  a  moral  standard 
which  is  false  and  a  symptom  of  disease  in  the 
soul.  It  is  from  this  conviction  that  the 
whole  analogy  between  the  State  and  the 
Individual  springs. 

No  doubt  Plato  constructs  his  State  in  such 
a  way  as  to  make  the  parallel  as  close  as 
possible,  but  he  shows  in  one  or  two  casual 
phrases '  that  he  is  himself  quite  aware  that 
the  parallel  is  not  actually  so  close  as  he  has 
drawn  it,  and  in  two  passages,  widely  separ- 
ated, he  insists  that  it  is  from  the  spiritual 
root,  and  not  from  the  superficial  resemblance, 
that  the  analogy  springs  (435  e,  544  d).    There 


*  E.g.,  ft  aXXa  arra  fiera^v  Tvyxdv€t  ovra  (443  e). 


I 


I 


t 


is  a  condition  of  the  soul  which  is  inherently 
good  and  healthy.  A  good  constitution  in 
the  State  is  therefore  one  which  springs  from 
and  perpetuates  the  good  spiritual  condition 
of  the  Individual.  The  excellence  of  this 
spiritual  condition  is  entirely  independent  of 
the  fact  of  the  soul's  eternity,  but  when  that 
is  brought  into  account  everything  other  than 
spiritual  excellence  immediately  becomes  negli- 
gible. So  the  State  is  criticised  from  a  rigidly 
moral  point  of  view,  and  the  ideal  State  is 
that  which  is  at  once  the  expression  and  the 
seed-plot  of  beautiful  characters,  and  is,  more-  f 
over,  the  best  school  for  eternity. 

We  have  already  noticed  that  Aristotle 
seems  to  have  no  ultimate  principle  by  which 
he  criticises  the  State.  His  method  is  for  the 
most  part  inductive ;  he  considers  what  in- 
stitutions there  have  been,  and  tries  to  infer 
from  their  merits  and  defects  in  working  what 
is  the  best  available.  Plato,  looking  into 
human  nature  with  the  thought  of  immor- 
tality always  present  to  him,  imagines  a  State 
which  should  be  the  perfectly  congruous  home 
of  the  perfect  character.  No  doubt  by  the 
end  of  Book  IX  this  has  become  a  city  in 


38   PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY 


II 


II         ETHICS   AND    POLITICS 


39 


Heaven,  which  he  despairs  of  realising  com- 
pletely upon  earth  ;  but  it  is  one  upon  which 
a  man  may  gaze  and  fashion  the  constitution 
within  his  own  soul  after  its  pattern.    In  a 
similar  way,  with  regard  to  individual  ethics 
we  find  that  Aristotle  is  in  the  end  of  the  day 
purely  intuitionist ;  there  are  many  acts  which 
are  to  be  done  merely  because  to  do  them  is 
noble,  and  to  shirk  them  is  base.   At  one  time 
we  had  thought  that  he  was  going  to  give  us 
the  principle  which  determines  nobihty  and 
baseness,  when  he  tells  us  that  virtue  lies  in  a 
mean  between  two  extremes,  and  that  this 
mean  is  determined  by  that  principle  which 
the  wise   man  {<l>p6vifw^)  would  apply.    But 
when  we  ask  who  is  the  wise  man  we  are  only 
told  that  it  is  he  who  apphes  the  right  principle. 
For  practical  purposes  this  works  well  enough. 
We  do  know  as  a  fact  the  kind  of  man  whose 
moral  advice  we  value  in  cases  of  perplexity. 
But  as  science  the  position  is  plainly  in- 
tolerable;    we  have  not  been  brought  any 
nearer  to  understanding  why  a  given  act  is 
^  —1  ngli*-    Plato  is  intuitionist,  as  every  man  must 
be,  about  the  end  ;  but  there  is  only  one  end, 
which  is  justice.    With  regard  to  all  particular 


actions  and  principles  Plato  is  ruthlessly 
utilitarian :  the  useful  is  noble,  and  the 
harmful  is  base  (457  b).  The  general  objec- 
tion to  a  utilitarian  criticism  of  morals  is  not 
really  that  it  justifies  moral  action  by  an  end 
beyond  itself,  but  that  the  end  which  it  pro- 
poses is  pleasure.  It  is  the  hedonism  of 
Bentham  and  Mill,  not  their  utilitarianism, 
that  is  the  real  flaw.  With  regard  to  such 
questions  as  the  relation  of  the  sexes  most 
men  need  to  fall  back  either  upon  prejudice 
or  intuition ;  the  two  are  not  always  easy  to 
distinguish.  Bentham  would  consider  what 
arrangement  most  conduces  to  the  greatest 
happiness  of  the  greatest  number,  and  inter- 
prets happiness  in  terms  of  pleasure.  Plat< 
will  be  equally  utilitarian  ;  the  arrangements 
and  conventions  must  be  such  as  most  effec- 
tively serve  the  highest  good  ;  but  for  him  th^ 
highest  good  is  by  no  means  pleasure — ^it  i^ 
Justice.  And  here  we  may  parenthetically 
Iremark  that  his  whole  system  fails  just  in 
proportion  as  justice  itself  falls  short  of  Love.\ 
About  the  end,  if  there  be  an  end,  man  must 
be  intuitionist,  and  therefore  Plato  does  not 
try  to  justify  his  ideal  man  or  his  ideal  State. 


I- 


^ 

^ 


40   PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY    ii 

He  draws  the  picture  and  says— Do  you  like 
it  or  not  ?     But  once  that  ideal  is  accepted  as 
the  end,  everything  else  falls  into  place  as 
means  to  that  end.    He  is  very  near  that 
interpretation  of  morality  which  says  that  to 
love  God  and  to  love  man  is  the  whole  of  the 
moral  law,  and  that  all  particular  actions  or 
departmental  principles  are  to  be  determined 
as  love  to  God  and  man  on  each  occasion 
prompt.    For  this  reason  Plato  is,  of  course, 
rather  shocking  to  respectability,  and  no  doubt 
there  is  in  his  work  a  lack  of  reverence  for  the 
authority  of  tradition.    But  the  tradition  of 
civiUsation  in  his  time  was  still  very  short ; 
the  Greeks,  whose  life  is  symbolised  by  their 
walled  cities,   knew  that  barbarism  lay  all 
about  them  and  that  they  were  only  just 
raised  above  it.    They  did  not  look  back  to 
two  thousand  years  of  history  in  a  society 
which   they   believed   to   be   inspired,   even 
though  the  treasure  be  in  earthen  vessels. 
And  so  Plato  is  able  practically  to  ignore  all 
conventions,  and  try  to  think  out  the  whole 
problem  for  himself.    Of  course  his  solution 
.  will  not  work.    His  proposed  abolition  of  the 
family,  his  communism  in  husbands,  wives, 


V 


i! 


II         ETHICS   AND   POLITICS        41 

and  children,  however  wisely  regulated  and 
however  strictly  conducted,  ignores  elementary 
facts  in  human  nature,  and  would  result  in 
making  men  more  selfish,  not,  as  he  hoped, 
more  self -devoted ;    moreover,  it  postulates 
an  understanding  by  the  rulers  of  the  intimate 
characters  of  their  subjects  such  as  no  philo- 
sopher  king,  nor   anyone   less  than   Divine, 
could  ever  have.     But  then  the  honesty  and 
thoroughness  of  the  attempt  make  his  failure 
more  instructive  than  the  success  of  most 
other  men,  here  as  in  so  many  departments 
of  his  work.     At  least  his  method  is  one  by 
which  a  complete  systematic  grasp  of  the 
moral  life  of  man,  whether  individual  as  in 
ethics,  or  corporate  as  in  politics,  is  possible.  ,; 
We  now  turn  to  the  actual  analogy  between  / 
the  State  and  the  Individual  which  is  the  most 
familiar  feature  of  the  Republic,    It  is  really  i 
based  upon  an  analysis  of  the  human  soul, 
though   Plato   develops   the   outUne   of  his 
Constitution    first,    and    only  discovers  the 
psychological    parallel    afterwards.     Let    us 
therefore  change  his  order  and  take  first  the 
analysis  of  the  Soul. 
Its    governing    principle    is    simply    this. 


42   PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY    ii 

There  are  three  primary  relations  in  which  a 
man  may  stand  to  other  men,  and  there  are 
only  three.    He  may  ignore  them,  he  may 
compete  with  them,  and  he  may  co-operate 
with  them.    No  doubt  these  three  can  be 
combined   in   an   infinite   variety   of    ways. 
For  example,  in  a  game  of  football  the  two 
teams  co-operate  in  creating  the  enjoyment  of 
the  game,  but  the  enjoyment  depends  upon  the 
competition  between  them,  for  if  one  side  does 
not  play  up  there  is  no  fun.    Consequently, 
within  the  whole  co-operative  system  of  the 
game  there  is  a  competitive  element  which  is 
vital  to  it.    But  again  in  this  competition 
each  team  co-operates ;    to  be  a  good  in- 
dividual player  is  to  be  good  in  co-operation ; 
the  selfish  player,  however  brilliant,  is  always 
an  inferior  player.    But  there  may  in  either 
team  be  some  wretched  individual  who  plays, 
not  for  the  sake  of  the  game,  but  for  the  sake 
of  exercise,  and  so  far  as  motive  is  concerned 
he  has  no  regard  to  other  persons  at  all, 
whether  in  the  way  of  competition  or  co- 
operation ;    he  takes  advantage  of  this  com- 
petitive  co-operative    activity   to    satisfy   a 
purely  seH-regarding  desire.    This  illustrates 


II 


ETHICS   AND   POLITICS 


the  way  in  which  by  being  mixed  together  the 
three  primary  relations  may  be  concealed  from 
anything  but  rather  close  observation.  It 
remains  true,  however,  that  one  or  other  of 
these  three  relations  must  be  present  between 
any  two  men  existing  in  the  same  universe, 
while  all  may  of  course  exist  together. 

The  elementary  desires  pay  no  attention  to 
other  persons.  When  I  am  hungry  I  need 
food,  when  I  am  thirsty  I  need  drink. ^  Here 
there  is  no  relation  to  other  people  impUed  at 
all.  In  a  vicious  social  system  it  may  be  true 
that  I  can  only  get  my  food  by  virtually 
robbing  someone  else  of  it,  and  so  far  I  become 
involved  in  competition ;  or  like  Sir  Philip 
Sidney,  I  may  when  thirsty  forgo  satisfaction 

^  In  order  to  insist  on  our  thinking  of  the  desires  in  their 
simplicity,  Plato  introduces  a  long  section  (437  b-439  c) 
to  explain  that  each  desire  is  of  an  object  and  that  the 
object  is  only  qualified  if  the  desire  is.  Thirst  is  desire 
for  drink ;  if  I  am  very  thirsty  I  desire  much  drink ;  if 
I  am  hot  and  thirsty  I  desire  a  cold  drink  ;  if  I  am  cold  and 
thirsty  I  desire  a  hot  drink.  Will  it  be  believed  that  some 
German  critics,  thinking  that  the  qualification  should  be  the 
same  on  both  sides  of  the  relation,  alter  the  MS.  and  make 
Plato  say  that  if  I  am  hot  and  thirsty  I  desire  a  hot  drink 
and  if  I  am  cold  and  thirsty  I  desire  a  cold  drink  ?  One 
wonders  if  even  a  German  professor  was  ever  known  to  run 
into  a  shop  out  of  a  blizzard  and  exclaim,  "  I  am  frozen  to 
death ;  give  me  an  iced  lemon  squash." 


/i 


Ik 

44   PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY    n 

of  my  thirst  for  the  sake  of  another,  but  this 
IS  not  done  in  so  far  as  I  am  thirsty,  but  in  so 
far  as  I  am  also  generous.    The  Ufe  of  desire 
then  is  purely  self-regarding,  and  the  function 
of  the  desires  is  simply  to  maintain  the  basis  of 
hfe.    But  the  separate  desires  are  not  only 
entirely  void  of  relation  to  other  persons, 
but  they  are  atomistic  in  themselves.    The 
desire  for  food  may  be  quite  isolated  from  the 
real  nature  of  the  whole  self,  so  may  the  desire 
for  drink.    In  fact,  these  desires  may  easily 
conflict  with  the  real  good  of  the  whole  person, 
or  even  with  his  deUberate  purpose,  so  that  by 
mdulging  in  them  a  man  may  wreck   both 
himself  and  the  purpose  of  his  life.    They  are 
'  self-regarding,  but  do  not  attain  to  the  level 
of  self-respect. 

This  is  reached  by  the  second  division  of 
the  So\il—0v,i6'!.  which  we  may  perhaps  re- 
present in  English  by  the  word  "spirit," 
understood  in  that  sense  which  it  bears  in  the 
phrase—"  A  man  of  spirit,"  or  by  the  word 
"  devil  "  in  the  sense  which  it  bears  when  we 
say  of  someone—"  He  has  a^evil  in  him."i 

,  'J*.^^P°^^^^  that  a  very  profound  phUosophy  of  evU 
lurks  in  tins  expression,  ^th  its  apparent  recognition  of  the 
value  of  qualities  clearly  evil  if  held  in  proper  subordination. 


II 


ETHICS  AND   POLITICS 


')1 


Ovfio^  does  regard  the  self  as  a  whole  in  con- 
trast with  the  desires  which  ignore  the  whole 
that  they  constitute ;  but  it  sees  the  man 
always  in  distinction  from,  and  in  competition 
with,  other  men.  Its  leading  word  is  Honour, 
and  perhaps  its  temper  is  best  expressed  in  the 
words  attributed  by  Blougram  to  Gigadibs : 
"  Best  be  yourself,  imperial,  plain  and 
true." 

Above  this  stands  reason,  whose  function  it 
is  to  realise  the  self  as  a  member  of  the  com- 
munity, and  therefore  to  perform  those  tasks 
which  fall  to  it  as  such  a  member ;  in  other 
words,  it  is  co-operative. 

Two  things  are  clear  about  this  scheme. 
In  the  first  place  there  is  a  real  function  for 
each  of  the  elements  of  the  soul  in  the  perfect 
life.  If  the  desires  are  not  satisfied  life  will 
cease  altogether ;  Ovfw<:  will  play  its  part 
in  protecting  reason  against  any  attempt 
of  desires  to  go  beyond  their  true  province  or 
against  such  oppression  by  other  men  as  might 
deprive  the  man  of  scope  for  the  service  he 
is  qualified  to  render ;  for  the  man  who  has 
once  learned  that  he  is  essentially  a  member 
of  a  community   will   only   satisfy  his   self- 


Vf 


46   PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY    ii 


II 


ETHICS   AND    POLITICS        47 


respect,  will  only  gain  such  honour  as  he  cares 
to  have,  by  hving  up  to  his  membership. 
Conseqi^ently,  if  reason  is^  supremft^t.Wp.  is  a 
place  found  for  the  other  elements  ;  butTI 
Ovfw<i  is  supreme  reason  is  given  no  place  ; 
and  if  desire  is  supreme  then  neither  reason 
nor  Ovfio^  can  find  a  place. 

Secondly,  we  have  obviously  here  the  basis 
of  three  types  of  society  :  anarchism,  individ- 
i  uahsm,  and  socialism  in  its  true  and  philo- 
sophical sense.     Before,  however,  passing  on 
to  this,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  deal  with 
the  complaint  that  Plato  seems  to  personify 
the  different  elements  in  the  Soul,  and  to  ignore 
its  unity.    After  all,  it  is  one  man  who  has 
desires  and  ambitions  and  duties.     That,  of 
course,  is  quite  true,  and  Plato  was  as  well 
aware  as  anybody  else  of  the  fundamental 
unity  of  the  Soul ;  so  he  says  in  the  Thecetetus 
(184  d)  that  it  is  ridiculous  to  regard  the  various 
faculties  as  sitting  side  by  side  in  the  Soul 
like  the  Greek  warriors  in  the  Trojan  horse. 
But  here  he  is  concerned  with  personality  as 
exhibited  in  action,  and  everyone  is  aware 
that  his  character  as  exhibited  in  action  is  a 
variable  thing.    There  are  days  when  desires 


( 


seem  to  run  riot ;  there  are  periods  when  he  is 
conscious  of  his  dignity  and  is  liable  to  act 
with  haughtiness ;  there  are  other  times 
when  he  is  really  concerned  to  render  the  kind 
of  service  that  his  gifts  make  him  fit  to  render. 
The  task  of  moral  training  cannot  be  better 
expressed  than  in  the  phrase  which  governs 
Plato's  thinking  at  this  point :  "  Out  of  many 
to  become  one  "  (443  e)  that  is,  to  gather  up 
all  the  different  impulses  and  instincts  and 
perceptions,  and  bind  them  into  one  whole 
which  shall  be  harmonious  both  with  itself 
and  with  its  neighbours  in  the  social  fabric. 

The  State,  according  to  Plato,  has  three  main 
divisions  corresponding  to  the  three  main 
divisions  of  the  Soul.  The  bulk  of  the 
population  will  always  be  concerned  with 
ministering  to  the  Desires,  that  is  to  say,  in 
the  production  of  food,  clothing,  houses,  and 
everything  else  necessary  to  the  bodily  life 
of  man.  But  the  State  might  need  to  defend 
itself,  and  therefore  a  certain  number  of  citizens 
in  whom  the  spirited  element  is  most  conspicu- 
ous will  be  set  apart  as  its  guardians,  and 
again  from  among  these  those  whose  rational 
faculty  is  greatest  will  be  selected  for  training 


48    PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY    ii 

as  rulers.    These  three  classes  provide  the 
skeleton  which  is  necessary  to  the  existence 
of  a  State,  but  inasmuch  as  the  hfe  of  desire 
goes  far  beyond  mere  maintenance  of  physical 
existence,  there  will  also  be  those  who  minister 
to  what  he  calls  the  unnecessary  passions. 
These  will  include  the  whole  range  of  artists, 
from  those  concerned  with  the  fine  arts  to  those 
who  make  an  art  of  what  can  be  treated  as  bare 
necessity,  such  as  high-class  cooks,  etc.    The 
multipUcation  of  these  he  considers  will  also 
involve  a  considerable  increase  in  the  number 
of  doctors.    As  he  pictures  this  extension  of 
his  primary  State  or  City  of  Pigs,  he  says  that 
an  extension  of  territory  will  be  necessary  for 
the  accommodation  of  these  adjuncts,  and  that 
this  is  the  original  reason  for  the  institution  of 
soldiers  ;   and  he  takes  occasion  at  this  point 
to  affirm,  like  St.  James,  that  the  origin  of 
war  is  that  "  ye  lust  and  have  not."    Still  it 
is  rather  for  defence  than  for  aggression  that 
the    mihtary   class   is   really   required,    and 
perhaps  also  because  Plato,  who  dreamt  of 
practical  reforms  as  well  as  ultimate  ideals, 
desired  that  his  ideal  State  should  be  actually 
founded  and   become  the  leader  of  Greek 


I 


II        ETHICS  AND   POLITICS      (\^ 

civiUsation  against  Persian  barbarism  (369  b- 
376  c;   469b-471c). 

Justice,  whether  in  the  Soul  or  in  the  State,  1 
consists  in  the  doing  by  each  element  of  just 
that  which  it  is  fitted  to  do.  Wisdom  resides , 
in  the  rational  faculty  alone,  and  the  wisdom 
of  the  State  in  its  ruling  class.  Courage  resides 
in  the  spirited  element  and  the  mihtary  class. 
Temperance  consists  in  each  of  the  three 
elements  or  classes  refraining  from  interference 
in  the  affairs  of  one  another.  Justice  is  the 
positive  side  of  the  same  virtue,  and  consists 
in  the  right  performance  by  each  element  or 
class  of  its  own  function.  There  must  be  in 
the  State  perfect  equaUty  of  opportunity,  and 
loyalty  is  always  to  be  primarily  given  to  the 
whole  community.  It  is  for  the  second  of  these 
objects  that  he  desires  to  abohsh  the  family — 
whether  in  the  two  higher  classes  or  in  all  the 
State,  for  this  point  is  not  made  clear.  He 
will  have  no  narrower  loyalty  that  may  hinder 
complete  devotion  to  the  whole  State.  No 
doubt  he  is  here  psychologically  wrong.  It  is 
only  through  learning  loyalty  in  the  smaller 
society,  to  which  the  child  can  recognise  its 
obHgation,  that  we  become  capable  of  the 


/ 


'.'y 


50    PLATO   AND  CHRISTIANITY 


II 


wider   loyalty;     but,    of   course,    Plato    has 
abundant    basis    in    experience    for    saying 
that  very  often  the  narrower  loyalty  in  fact 
prevents  a  true  loyalty  to  the  larger  unit. 
Men  do  often  put  their   family    before  their 
country,  perhaps  not  usually  in  war,  but  very 
generally  in  peace,  and  a  Christian  must  add 
that  nearly  all  men  put  their  country  before 
humanity  and  the   Kingdom   of   God.     The 
abolition  of  the  family  also  secures  incidentally 
equality    of    opportunity.     Children    are    all 
brought  up  under  the  same  influence  and  given 
the  same  chances,  and  they  are  to  be  allotted 
by  the  rulers  to  that  class  for  which  their 
faculties  fit  them.     The  child  of  a  philosopher- 
king    who    is    not    distinguished    either    for 
courage  or  wisdom  will  go  into  the  class  of  the 
craftsmen;    and  the  child  of  the  craftsman 
may  become  a  philosopher-king  (414b-415  d  ; 
432b-434c;   443b-444a;   457  b-466  d). 

The  ideal  State  then  is  one  in  which  the 
5rue  constitution  of  the  Soul  is  exempUfied 
Ion  the  larger  scale  of  poHtical  organisation 
(443c).  And  this  is  made  clearer  by  the 
account  which  Plato  gives  of  cities  which  fall 
short  of  the  ideal.     This  account  is  given  in 


r 


11         ETHICS   AND    POLITICS        51 

a  semi-mythical  form  as  though  it  represented 
actual  history,  but  the  procedure  is  logical 
and  not  historical,  and  represents  the  giving 
of   supreme   power   to   various   elements   in 
human  nature  other  than  reason  in  a  downward 
series.    He  imagines  that  his  State  has  been 
founded ;    but  if  so  it  will  come  under  the 
general  law  that  all  which  has  growth  must  also 
suffer  decay  (546  a).    It  is  free  from  the  seeds 
of   decay   within   itself,    and    therefore    the 
moment  when  the  decay  sets  m  must  be 
determined  by  something  outside  itself.    He 
suggests  in  solemn  language  that  there  is  a 
geometric  or  earth-measuring  number  whose 
completion    will    inevitably    initiate    decay. 
The  controversy,  that  rages  round  the  question 
what  exactly  this  number  is,  is  itself  enough  to 
show  that  it  was  never  very  specially  meant 
to  be  any  number  in  particular ;   that  Plato 
knew  it  for  such  we  shall  find  evidence  a  little 
later  ;  no  doubt  it  was  intended  for  a  Magnus 
Annus  of  some  sort. 

The  first  stage  in  decay  is  where  6vfio<; 
becomes  supreme  in  the  soul  and  the  miUtary 
class  in  the  State.  Such  a  city  was  Sparta 
in   Plato's   time ;    such  a  State  perhaps  is 

£  2 


^ 


52   PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY    ii 


II 


ETHICS   AND    POLITICS 


53 


Prussia,  according  to  its  own  estimate  of 
itself,  in  the  modern  world.  Here  the  supreme 
concern  is  glory  for  the  State  and  honour  for 
the  Individual — ^honour  interpreted,  not  as 
the  maintenance  of  moral  integrity,  but  as  the 
maintenance  of  reputation,  the  kind  of  honour, 
in  fact,  that  takes  offence  at  an  insult.  There 
is  still  self-respect  and  therefore  self-control, 
but  the  general  spirit  is  aggressive  and  dis- 
agreeable. In  the  next  stage  the  unnecessary 
passions,  for  example  the  passion  for  wealth, 
have  won  supremacy  in  the  Soul,  and  the 
political  constitution  becomes  an  oligarchy, 
or  as  we  should  say  plutocracy.  Here  too 
there  is  some  self-control,  because  for  the 
making  of  money  a  certain  restraint  upon  the 
more  violent  passions  and  a  certain  concentra- 
tion of  purpose  are  needed ;  but  the  con- 
stitution, whether  of  the  Soul  or  of  the  State, 
is  now  precarious  ;  both  poUtical  power  and 
social  position  are  in  the  hands  of  a  few  men 
who  are  doing  nothing  whatever  to  deserve 
them.  The  soldier-leaders  of  a  timocracy  are 
after  all  serving  the  State  and  offering  their 
lives  for  it ;  the  plutocrat  does  nothing  of  the 
kind.    There  is  no  principle  of  any  sort  to 


'J, 


justify  his  position,  and  consequently  the  great 
mass  of  citizens  are  ready  to  rise  against  him. 
Similrrly,  in  the  Soul  the  unnecessary  desires 
can  give  no  reason  to  the  more  elementary 
passions  why  they  should  be  kept  in  check. 
This  is  represented  in  Plato's  mythical  story, 
by  the  suggestion  that  as  the  oligarchical  man 
is  the  son  of  a  timocratic  man,  so  for  his 
own  son  he  has  a  democratic  man.  He  is 
unable  to  impart  to  his  son  the  principles 
which  have  kept  him  at  least  respectable, 
because  these  principles  have  no  rational 
basis  ;  and  so  in  the  son  all  passions  run  riot 
together,  while  in  the  democratic  State 
citizens  claim  the  right  to  do  ever)rthing  ;  for 
by  democracy  Plato  means  mob-rule.  The 
representative  system  had  not  been  invented, 
though  it  is  true  that  the  Athenians  elected 
their  chief  executive  officers.  The  great  vices 
of  democracy  as  he  understands  it  arise  from 
the  unwillingness  of  anyone  to  recognise  the 
superiority  of  anyone  else,  in  any  department 
whatever.  It  is  an  attempt  at  equality,  not 
only  of  opportunity,  but  of  influence  and 
power.  And  so  he  says  it  is  a  kind  of  bazaar  of 
constitutions,  which  acts  upon  different  prin- 


I 

1 


\    p 


I 


1 


^~-.. 


54    PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY    ii 

ciples  almost   every  day;    and    the    corre- 
sponding man  is  one  in  whom  now  this  passion, 
now  that,  is  uppermost.     One  day  he  may 
choose  to  be  a  profligate,  another  day  he  may 
choose  to  be  an  artist,  another  day  he  may 
choose  to  govern  the  State  or  lead  an  army. 
He  may  possibly  be  very  clever  and  attractive, 
but  there  is  no  constancy  about  him  and  no  one 
can  trust  him.    There  is  only  one  stage  worse  ; 
that  is  where  in  the  Soul  a  single  violent 
passion  has  won  control  over  all  the  rest,  and 
the  corresponding  State  is  one  where  a  single 
citizen— not  himself  fitted  for  rule— holds  all 
the  power.    The  philosopher-king  is  a  despot, 
who  governs  for  the  sake  of  the  subjects,' 
as  reason  is  a  despot  governing  the  Soul  for  its 
fuUest  good.     The  tyrant  is  a  despot  who 
governs  for  the  sake  of  himself,  as  the  tyran- 
nical man  is  one  whose  soul  is  under  the 
oppression  of  one  of  its  own  parts  which  is 
unfit  to  rule.    Worst  and  most  miserable  of 
all  things  is  that  tyrannical  man  who  has 
attained  the  position  of  tyrant  in  a  State. 
For  here  the  single  violent  passion  which 
governs  his  soul  forces  all  the  resources  of  the 
State  into  its  service.    For  the  description 


II 


ETHICS   AND    POLITICS 


55 


of  such  a  man  Plato  says  we  must  go  to  one 
who  has  lived  in  the  house  of  such  a  tyrant, 
and  has  himself  the  insight  to  realise  the  facts. 
He  is,  of  course,  thinking  of  his  own  experience 
in  the  court  of  Dionysius  of  Syracuse  (547  c- 
580  a). 

At  the  close  of  this  series  of  States  and 
Individuals  we  have  another  Pythagorean 
number,  and  its  quality  throws  light  on  the 
former.  He  says  that  from  the  philosopher- 
king  to  the  oligarch  is  3  ;  from  the  oligarch 
to  the  tyrant  is  3  ;  if  we  multiply  these  together 
we  get  9,  but  we  want  a  solid  result ;  so  we 
cube  it ;  and  the  cube  of  9  is  729  ;  and  this  is 
very  nearly,  but  not  quite,  twice  the  number 
of  days  in  a  year ;  so  the  philosopher-king  is 
happier  than  the  tyrant  every  day  and  every 
night  of  his  life.  Plato  counts  one  stage  twice 
over ;  he  multiplies  when  he  ought  to  add  ;  he 
cubes  the  product  for  no  reason  at  all ;  and 
the  result  is  a  number  which  is  nearly  but  not 
quite  one  to  which  a  wholly  fantastic  signi- 
ficance could  be  given.  Plainly  the  whole 
thing  is  a  satire  on  the  humbug  of  mystical 
numbers,  but  I  need  not  add  that  the  German 
commentators  are  seriously  exercised  as  to  the 


56   PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY 


II 


"|"**«k, 


rationale  of  the  philosopher's  procedure  (587  b- 
588  a). 

I  have  deliberately  given  the  outline  of  the 
ideal  State  and  the  process  of  decay  from  the 
ideal  to  tyranny  before  stating  how  it  is  that 
m  the  Republic  the  ideal  State  ever  came  to  be 
constructed.    This  is  because  the  argument  of 
the  first  Book,  and  even  of  the  first  part  of 
Book  II,  usually  strikes  people  at  first  as 
bemg  singularly  shght  and  inconclusive.     It 
IS  only  when  read  in  the  light  of  what  comes 
afterwards  that  its  real  significance  is  appre- 
ciated ;   for  the  significance  is  first  and  fore- 
most dramatic  and  not  logical.    Kephalus, 
the  devout  old  man,  maintains  that  for  a  man 
who  is  just  and  who  is  provided  with  the  means 
of  rendering  his  duty  to  gods  and  men  death 
has  no  terrors.    Socrates  at  once  asks  him 
what  IS  this  quaUty  of  justice  which  saves  a 
man  from  the  fear  of  death.    But  Kephalus 
does  not  answer  ;  he  hands  over  the  argument 
to  his  son  and  himself  goes  out  smihng  to  offer 
sacrifice.    The  simple  faith  of  his  serene  old 
age  need  not  be  disturbed  (327  a-33l  d).    His 
son  Polemarchus  is  a  well-brought-up  young 
man.  but  he  has  to  live  in  a  world  where 


II         ETHICS   AND    POLITICS        57 

questions    are    being    asked  that  were    not 
common   when    Kephalus   was   young,    and 
unless  he  can  give  a  reason  for  the  hope  that 
is  in  him  he  is  likely  to  be  driven  into  cynicism 
and  perhaps  from  that  to  the  abandonment  of 
morality  even  in  practice.    Polemarchus  be- 
gins by  quoting  Simonides  ;    he  appeals,  in 
fact,   to  authority.    Justice  is  to  render  to 
each  his  due.    This,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is  true 
enough,    though    it    is    always   a   superficial 
statement;     but    Polemarchus    attaches    no 
particular  meaning  to  it ;  he  has  not  thought 
it  out,  and  so,  as  Socrates  debates  the  question, 
he  is  reduced  to  complete  perplexity.     It  is 
important  to  notice  that  one  of  the  confusions 
that    Socrates    introduces    arises    from    the 
question— What  is  the  sphere  or  department 
of  justice  ?     Every   other  art  has  its   own 
department ;    medicine  is  the  art  of  healing, 
cookery  the  art  of  cooking,  and  so  on.    What 
is  the  sphere  of  justice  corresponding  to  these 
two  ?    And  no  sphere  is  discoverable.    The 
attempt  to  allot  one  results  by  a  process  of 
ingenious  argument  in  the  view  that  justice 
is  itself  a  special  department  of  the  art  of 
stealing.    The  whole  point  of  this  argument, 


58    PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY    ii 


II         ETHICS   AND    POLITICS 


59 


of  course,  is  the  error  of  its  starting-place. 
Justice  has  no  special  department  because  all 
life  is  its  department,  and  we  presume  suf- 
ficient justice  in  our  doctor  or  our  cook  to 
safeguard  us  against  being  poisoned  by  them. 
As  soon  as  a  special  department  is  sought 
there  is  none  to  be  found,  and  justice  becomes 
useful  only  in  uselessness  (331  e-336  a). 

The  conventional  beliefs  of  the  well-brought- 
up   young   man   have    broken   down ;   he   is 
succeeded  by  Thrasymachus,  the   clever  but 
superficial  cynic.     In  the  dialogue  these  two 
phases  must  be  represented  by  two  persons, 
but  in  fact  they  are  two  stages   in    mental 
growth.    Everyone  who  has  watched  under- 
graduates passing  through   their   University 
course    has  seen   Polemarchus   change    into 
Thrasymachus,  generally  I  think  about  the 
beginning  of  the  second  year,  in  a  score  of 
instances.     According   to   Thrasymachus   all 
morality  is  a  convention,  and  on  the  whole  a 
bad  one.    The  true  principle  of  life  is  the 
interest  of  the  stronger ;    the  weak  must  go 
to  the  wall ;   it  is  just  that  the  strong  should 
control  them  or  trample  on  them.   But  Thrasy- 
machus himself  cannot  defend  this  position 


^M 


r 


in  the  end,  for  it  really  involves  in  practice 
that  the  ruler  of  the  State  must  be  infalHble. 
What  is  to  happen  if  he  enacts  something  which 
is  contrary  to  his  own  interest— that  is,  the 
interest  of  the  stronger  ?     Is  the  subject,  or 
weaker,  to  serve  what  is  the  interest  of  the 
stronger,  or  what  the  stronger  thinks  to  be  his 
interest  ?    No  coherent  answer  can  be  given 
to  this  question,  and  so  cynicism  itself  also 
breaks  down  (336  b-354  c).    In  the  same  way, 
the  philosophy  of  Nietzsche,  which  is  Thrasy- 
machus turned  into  poetry,  involves  either  the 
same  incoherence  or  else  a  perpetual  state  of 
anarchy  while  the  superman  is  being  discovered. 
In  the  process  of  this  purely  dialectical  argu- 
ment Socrates  has  estabUshed  three  points 
which  stand  firm.     One  is  that  it  can  never  be 
just  to  inflict  an  injury,  for  to  injure  is  to  make  ' 
worse,  and  it  is  contradictory  to  say  that 
justice  can  make  a  man  worse,   i.e.,   more 
unjust.    It  may  or  may  not  be  right  to  in- 
flict pain  ;   but  it  will  only  be  right  to  inflict 
pain  when  it  is  inflicted  as  a  medicine.     Con- 
sequently, Polemarchus'  paraphrase  of  Simon- 
ides,  that  we  should  benefit  friends  and  injure 
enemies,  must  be  rejected.    The  just  man  will 


/^ 


V.J 


60   PLATO  AND   CHRISTIANITY    ii 


/ 


not  injure  his  enemies  in  any  real  sense  of  the 
word  injury  (335  b-d).  The  second  principle 
which  has  been  estabUshed  and  stands  firm 
is  that  rulers  as  such  are  concerned  not  with 
themselves  but  with  their  subjects  ;  just  as 
the  shepherd  qua  shepherd  is  concerned,  not 
with  himself,  but  with  the  sheep.  If  he  is 
paid  for  it  and  if  he  only  tends  the  sheep  for 
pay,  he  does  all  that  as  a  money-maker  and 
not  as  a  shepherd  ;  but  the  duty  of  a  shepherd 
is  not  to  make  money  but  to  care  for  the  sheep 
(341  a-347  a).  The  third  principle  is  that 
Justice  is  a  principle  of  union  and  therefore 
of  strength,  while  Injustice  is  a  principle  of 
disunion  and  therefore  of  weakness.  Even 
a  gang  of  robbers,  if  it  is  to  be  effective  in 
villainy,  must  be  held  together  by  its  members' 
respect  for  one  another's  rights.  Justice  is 
therefore  already  seen  to  be  what  in  the  Ideal 
State  it  explicitly  becomes — ^the  principle  of 
co-operation  (348  a-352  d).^ 
Conventional  beUefs  have  broken  down,  and 

^  The  closing  argument  of  the  Book  (352  d-354  c)  is  in  its 
place  a  quibble  on  the  two  senses  of  "  live  well  ** — nc  live 
agreeably  and  live  virtuously.  The  identity  of  these  two 
is  established,  and  the  argument  retrospectively  justified, 
by  subsequent  developments. 


II 


ETHICS   AND   POLITICS        61 


I 


cynicism  has  broken  down ;  the  argument  is 
now  taken  up  by  Glauco  and  Adeimantus,  who 
are  Plato's  two  brothers,  and  in  whom  he  has 
embodied  the  two  main  streams  of  his  philo- 
sophic ardour.  Glauco  is  the  uncompromising 
idealist  and  Adeimantus  the  practical  re- 
former, and  from  now  to  the  end  of  the 
dialogue  Glauco  is  always  the  interlocutor  in 
the  more  ideal  passages,  and  Adeimantus  in  the 
more  practical.  Indeed  Adeimantus  several 
times  breaks  in  when  the  argument  seems  to 
be  becoming  too  idealist  and  remote  from 
facts,  recalling  Socrates  to  the  question — ^What 
can  we  actually  do  ?  (e,g,,  362  d,  449  b,  487  b). 
Glauco  now  undertakes  to  revive  the  argu- 
ment of  Thrasymachus,  not  because  he  beUeves 
in  it,  but  because  he  thinks  Socrates'  refutation 
up  till  now  inadequate,  and  so  he  will  state 
the  argument  as  forcibly  as  he  can  in  the  hope 
that  he  may  hear  Socrates  refute  its  strongest 
claims.  The  argument  which  he  advances  is 
this.  All  men  are  by  nature  selfish.  If  left 
to  themselves  they  would  live  in  what  Hobbes 
describes  as  the  state  of  nature,  wherein 
the  life  of  man  is  "  solitary,  poor,  nasty, 
brutish,    and    short."    As    soon    as    anyone 


62   PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY    ii 

possesses  anything  he  finds  aU  the  rest  against 
him,  and  so  there  is  security  for  nobody. 
Consequently  men  have  made  a  convention 
neither  to  commit  nor  suffer  injury.  What 
would  be  best  for  each,  namely,  to  commit 
mjury  with  impunity,  is  out  of  reach.  It  is 
worth  while  to  recognise  the  rights  of  others 
,  m  order  to  secure  one's  own  ;  morality  is  just 

the  compromise  arrived  at  by  selfish  men, 
m  order  that  through  setting  a  certain  hmit 
upon   their   selfishness   they   may   secure  a 
considerable   measure   of  selfish   enjoyment. 
If  men  could   be   sure   of  always  escaping 
detection  by  having,  for  example,  the  power 
to  become  invisible  at  will,   no  one's  con- 
science would  be  strong  enough  to  stand  the 
stram,  and  men  would  indulge  in  every  sort 
of    pleasure— wholesome    and    horrible.     On 
the  other  hand,  if  there  should  appear  in  the 
world  a  man  perfectly  righteous  and  caring 
for  nghteousness  for  its  own  sake,  he  would 
y   ,  appear  to  others  to  be  an  assailant  of  morality 
because  he  challenged  their  own  moral  habits, 
and  they  would  scourge  and  crucify  him.i 

ovAfvOrjatTM  (361  e).  ^ 


-7.- 


II 


ETHICS   AND   POLITICS 


63 


And  so  morality  itself  is,  in  fact,  not  the 
supreme  good,  but  the  lesser  of  two  evils,  and 
if  any  man  can  ignore  it  and  be  sure  of  impunity 
he  will  do  so,  and  will  be  wise  in  doing  so 
(358  e-362  c). 

Here  Adeimantus  takes  up  the  tale.  Not 
only,  he  says,  do  men  believe  what  Glauco 
has  just  said,  but  you  cannot  expect  them  to 
believe  anything  else  when  they  are  educated 
as  they  are  ;  for  the  poets,  who  are  our  only 
authority  for  beUeving  in  the  gods,  themselves 
represent  them  as  having  nothing  in  par- 
ticular to  do  with  righteousness;  their  ex- 
ample is  disastrous  to  the  morality  of  man ; 
and  there  are  quack-priests  in  the  world 
ready  to  offer  absolutions  and  perform  re- 
quiems by  means  of  which,  at  a  trifling  cost, 
men  may  escape  the  penalties  of  their  mis- 
deeds. So  the  part  of  a  wise  man,  as  it  would 
seem,  is  to  commit  robbery  and  offer  sacrifice 
out  of  the  proceeds  ;  so  he  will  make  the  best 
of  both  worlds  (362  d-367  e).  ^ 

It  is  in  answer  to  the  two  brothers  that 
Plato  sketches  the  ideal  State.     Society  would  \ 
arise  if  men  were  simply  and  entirely  selfish,  ^ 
as  Glauco  has  said ;    but  Society  would  also 


-r 


V 


./>-«-**' 


64   PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY    ii 

arise  if  men  were  wholly  free  from  selfishness, 
for  men  have  different  gifts,  and  each  needs  the 
gifts  of  all ;  and  so,  apart  from  all  competition 
or  selfishness,  men  would  as  a  matter  of  fact 
co-operate  according  to  some  ordered  scheme. 
The  ideal  State  is  society  as  it  would  be  if 
men  were  thus  wholly  free  from  selfishness. 
Actually  society  no  doubt  rests  upon  both 
principles  at  once.     In  so  far  as  it  is  repre- 
sented  by   the   poUce  and  the   law   courts, 
Glauco's  theory  is  true  ;  and  most  of  us  would 
have  to  confess  that  if  the  penal  sanctions  of 
moraUty  were  all  aboUshed,  our  own  standard 
of  conduct  would  be  Ukely  in  one  respect  or 
another  to  decHne.    But  there  is  also  in  actual 
society   an   immense   element   of   fellowship 
and  co-operation ;  and  political  progress  has, 
in  fact,  consisted  in  the  development  of  the 
element  of  fellowship  as  against  the  element  of 
mutual  antagonism ;    that  is  to  say,  in  the 
development  from  society  as  Glauco  repre- 
sents it,  towards  the  ideal  State  which  Socrates 
constructs. 

Justice  as  the  governing  principle  of  the 
ideal  State  is,  as  we  have  seen,  the  requiring 
from  each  man  of  the  service  he  is  fitted  to 


II 


ETHICS   AND    POLITICS 


65 


render.  No  doubt  in  abstract  logic  this  works 
out  as  identical  with  justice,  as  Polemarchus 
following  Simonides  defined  it — the  rendering 
to  each  his  due.  For  rights  and  duties  are 
correlative  terms  ;  my  neighbour's  duties  are 
constituted  by  my  rights,  and  my  duties  by 
his  rights.  But  in  practice  the  two  are  very 
different.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  much  easier 
for  a  man  to  determine  whether  he  is  doing 
his  utmost  for  society  than  to  determine  what 
is  really  due  (that  is,  what  will  be  truly  bene- 
ficial) to  any  given  individual.  If  all  men  will 
solve  their  own  problem  of  doing  their  very 
best,  the  other  problem  will  have  solved  itself. 
But  even  more  important  than  this  is  the 
distinction  in  moral  atmosphere.  Polemar- 
chus' phrase  lays  all  the  emphasis  on  rights, 
and  would  suggest  a  society  of  persons,  each 
claiming  his  just  rights.  Socrates'  definition 
lays  the  emphasis  on  duties,  and  suggests  a 
society  of  persons  eager  to  render  each  his  just 
meed  of  service.  Perhaps  there  is  nothing  so 
important  for  our  modern  democracy  as  to 
learn  this  transference  of  emphasis  from  rights 

to  d  ities. 
Glauco,  then,  is  answered  by  the  construc- 

F 


s. 


<  t-~ 


66   PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY    ii 

tion  of  the  Ideal  State.  Morality  as  we  know 
it  is  very  often  adopted  as  a  mere  compromise  ; 
but  it  need  not  be  so  ;  and  morality  in  its  own 
nature  and  when  loved  for  its  own  sake  turns 
out  to  be  the  highest  good  for  men. 

The  answer  to  Adeimantus  follows  similar 
lines.     Contemporary  education  is  very  apt 
to  be  as  bad  as  he  says  it  is  ;  but  it  is  capable 
of  reform  ;    and  we  can  conceive  a  type  of 
education  which  will  be  a  real  training  in 
morality.     The  governing  principle  in  Plato's 
;  J  -      educational  scheme  is  that  character  must  be 
moulded  before  the  intellect  is  trained.     The 
primary  business  of  elementary  education  is 
so  to  mould  the  impulses  and  instincts  that 
the  child  will  spontaneously  love  and  hate  the 
right  things.     The  child  is  to  be  brought  up 
in  such  surroundings  as  will  make  goodness 
attractive.     It   must   have   no   personal   ex- 
perience of  evil  at  aU.    When  it  meets  with 
evil  in  later  life  it  will  recognise  it  by  the 
jarring  discord  between  it  and  the  character 
that    its    early    environment    has    moulded. 
Morahty  here  differs  from  Science.     It  may  be 
a  good  thing  that  a  doctor  should  have  had 
experience  of  disease,  for  he  heals  body  with 


II 


ETHICS   AND    POLITICS 


67 


/ 


i> 


mind,  and  the  bodily  disease  may  not  damage 
his  mind.  But  the  judge  must  not  have 
experienced  moral  evil  in  his  own  soul,  for 
he  has  to  heal  soul  with  soul.  We  cannot 
make  moral  experiments,  for  to  introduce 
evil  into  the  soul  vitiates  the  very  faculty  by 
which  we  afterwards  pronounce  judgment 
(408  d-409  d).  There  is  a  danger  that  the  soul 
itself  may  become  possessed  by  a  lie,  and  then 
it  can  no  more  grasp  the  truth,  even  if  it  gazes 
on  it,  than  a  warped  mirror  can  accurately 
reflect  what  is  before  it  (382  a  and  b).  To  train 
the  intellect  if  the  character  is  unsound  may 
only  enable  a  man  to  be  successful  in  his 
villainy  ;  this  will  be  bad  for  society  but  also 
for  himself,  for  it  will  make  him  content  with 
vice  (376e-403c). 

Plato  is  under  no  illusion  with  regard  to 
the  greatness  of  the  moral  task.  He  knows 
that  virtue  is  only  attained  at  great  cost  and 
effort.  The  apparent  sacrifice  of  the  in- 
dividual to  the  State  in  Book  V  is  the  measure 
of  his  apprehension  of  the  difficulties  in  the 
way.  Perhaps,  however,  the  parable  in  Book 
IX  represents  the  matter  still  more  forcibly. 
He  says  that  we  must  fashion  in  our  minds  a 

F  2 


68    PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY 


II 


II 


ETHICS   AND   POLITICS 


69 


composite  image.  First  there  shall  be  a  many- 
headed  monster  which  represents  the  life  of 
desire,  and  then  smaller,  but  very  formidable, 
a  lion,  representing  the  element  of  self-assertion 
or  evfih<i,  and  lastly,  far  smaller  than  this,  a 
man  representing  the  rational  principle.  All 
of  these  we  must  enclose  in  the  outward  form 
of  a  man.  That  is  human  nature  ;  and  the 
moral  task  consists  in  reducing  the  many- 
headed  monster  into  complete  subordination 
to  the  tiny  man,  and  forming  an  alliance  be- 
tween the  man  and  the  lion  on  terms  which 
the  man  dictates.  The  whole  scheme  of  the 
Ideal  State,  not  only  as  regards  Education, 
but  also  in  the  principles  of  its  poUtical  con- 
stitution, is  intended  to  faciUtate  the  per- 
formance of  this  task,  the  development  of  the 
humanity  in  man  (588  c-592  b). 

It  may  perhaps  be  asked— What  has  become 
of  free-will?  Is  it  ignored?  Perhaps  we 
must  answer  that  for  practical  purposes  it  is 
ignored.  But  then  surely  we  must  add  that 
all  political  discussion  is  bound  to  ignore  it. 
Environment  does,  to  an  immense  extent  at 
least,  determine  character,  and  when  we  are 
discussing  what  we  can  do  to  form  the  char- 


/ 


acters  of  citizens,  we  must  leave  out  of  sight 
the  possibility  that  some  individuals  may  make 
the  most  adverse  circumstances  material  for 
their  moral  achievement.  We  should  indeed 
remember  (and  it  may  fairly  be  held  that  Plato 
forgets)  the  fact  that  the  deepest  springs  X)f 
human  nature  can  only  be  appealed  to  through 
something  which  arouses  sympathy.  Plato 
has  this  fully  in  mind  in  his  educational 
scheme,  but  when  he  comes  to  the  Constitution 
he  seems  to  leave  it  out  of  sight.  The  ultimate 
problem  of  free-will,  however,  is  fully  present 
to  his  mind.  In  the  myth  with  which  the 
Dialogue  closes,  the  souls  of  men  in  the  other 
world  are  represented  as  being  brought  before 
the  throne  of  Necessity  to  choose  the  genius 
which  shall  govern  their  Ufe  after  reincarna- 
tion. The  various  lots  are  set  out  before 
them,  and  a  voice  is  heard  proclaiming  that 
each  must  choose  for  himself ;  "  the  re- 
sponsibility is  with  the  chooser — God  is 
blameless. "1  Taken  as  mere  prose,  this  seems 
to  place  the  act  of  free-will  in  a  moment 
previous  to  birth,  after  which  it  would  seem 
that  we  merely  work  out  the  result  of  the 

*  ahia  iXofievov  dtos  dvairios.     (617  e.) 


70   PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY    ii 

choice  then  made  ;  indeed  it  is  because  of  that 
choice  that  philosophy  is  represented  as  so 
supremely  important.  A  man  who  has  lived 
well,  but  without  Reason,  will  indeed  depart 
undefiled  to  the  other  world  and  for  the  thou- 
sand years  of  pilgrimage  there  will  enjoy  the 
rewards  of  his  virtue  ;  but  on  having  to  choose 
his  lot  for  a  future  Hf e  upon  earth  he  may  make 
terrible  mistakes  through  not  knowing  the 
real  standards  of  value  ;  and  so  he  may  return 
to  earth  and  Uve  the  Kfe  of  a  villain,  and 
depart  again  to  the  other  world,  needing  this 
time  the  purification  of  its  punishments. 

Perhaps  at  this  point  one  may  remark  that 
these  punishments  for  Plato  are  all  to  be 
remedial  so  long  as  remedy  is  possible  ;  but 
there  is,  he  thinks,  a  condition  of  soul  which  is 
incurable  ;  and  then,  as  no  good  can  be  made 
out  of  the  man  for  himself,  he  may  still  be 
turned  to  some  good  through  being  used  as  a 
warning  to  others.  Such  was  Ardiaeus  the 
Great ;  he,  at  the  end  of  a  Hfe  of  tyranny, 
had  died  a  thousand  years  before  the  vision 
was  seen.  The  souls  who  had  passed  through 
this  world  with  him  inquire,  as  they  prepare 
for  reincarnation,  where  the  great  tyrant  is ; 


II 


ETHICS   AND    POLITICS        71 


there  are  some  who  answer  that  they  had  seen 
him  emerge  from  the  pit,  but  before  he  reached 
its  mouth  men  of  fierce  and  fiery  countenance 
seized  him  and  hurled  him  back.  There  is  in 
Plato's  theology  a  Hell  for  those  who  have 
passed  beyond  the  reach  of  all  spiritual 
healing,  but  only  for  them. 

But  all  of  this  is  part  of  a  myth  ;  it  is  all  of 
it  poetry,  not  science.  It  signifies  the  infinite 
and  eternal  significance  of  the  moral  choice, 
and  also  the  truth  that  somehow  or  other  man 
is  responsible,  though  God  is  supreme ;  and 
there  it  is  left.  The  problem  of  free-will,  as  we 
know  it,  is  not  one  which  Plato  has  made  the 
subject  of  definite  philosophical  discussion. 

The  last  paragraphs  make  it  clear  that  in  f 
Plato's  view  there  are  indeed  rewards  for 
justice,  and  punishments  for  injustice ;  but 
these  are  only  introduced  at  the  very  end  and 
after  justice  has  been  pronounced  the  best  life 
for  man.  It  had  been  demanded  by  Glauco 
(361  c,  d)  that  this  should  be  demonstrated 
without  any  regard  to  the  consequences  of 
justice  ;  and  the  Ideal  State  was  conceived 
and  the  philosopher-king  described,  to  meet 
that    demand    of    Glauco.     For    indeed    the 


^'  f 


72   PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY    ii 


II 


ETHICS   AND   POLITICS        73 


N„ 


highest  good  can  never  be  justified.  To 
justify  is  to  approve  as  righteous  by  reference 
to  some  external  standard ;  righteousness  itself, 
therefore,  which  constitutes  the  standard, 
cannot  be  justified  ;  we  can  only  describe  it 
and  ask — ^Do  you  like  it  or  not  ?  In  the 
passage  concerning  the  Idea  of  Good  Glauco 
suggests  that  by  this  perhaps  Socrates  means 
Pleasure  ;  but  the  suggestion  is  repudiated  in 
words  which  imply  that  it  is  blasphemy  (509  a). 
Nor  is  the  highest  good  Happiness  in  any 
possible  sense  of  that  word,  for  this  still 
subordinates  what  is  right  to  what  is  agreeable. 
The  highest  good  is  Justice  itself — but  Justice 
and  not  Love. 

Plato  never  took  that  step  which  seems  to 
us  to  be  so  easy  for  him  ;  in  the  supreme 
moment  he  is  terribly  stern ;  pleasure  posi- 
tively terrifies  him ;  it  is  the  one  subject 
about  which  he  seems  to  be  the  victim  of 
prejudice.  Until  Christ  came,  every  image  of 
God  was  an  idol ;  until  Christ  died,  every 
conception  of  the  Divine  Love  was  soft  and 
sentimental,  unless  it  were  balanced,  as  we 
see  it  balanced  in  the  prophets,  by  an  element 
of  sternness  which  may  be  logically  incompat- 


I  r 

I 


ible  with  the  other,  but  is  morally  necessary. 
Forgiveness  of  sins  is  demorahsing,  unless  it  is 
oSered  at  an  overwhelming  cost  to  the  par- 
doner.    If  God  merely  says  "Never  mind," 
that  is  an  insult  to  the  better  kind  of  man 
and   an   encouragement  to  the  worse  kind. 
But  when  God  has  set  forth  the  tremendous 
cost  at  which  alone  He  can  forgive,  everjrthing 
is  changed.     There  is  nothing  so  humbUng  as 
that   one's   friend   should   say— "^ou   have 
betrayed  me,  and  no  words  can  express  the 
pain  it  caused  ;    but  it  shall  not  disturb  our 
friendship."  There  is  nothing  in  that  demoral- 
ising, nor  anything  that  can  encourage  the 
basest.    But  this  revelation  had  not  yet  been 
given,  and  we  see  Plato  lacking  just  the  one 
element  that  would  have  made  his  philosophy 
coherent   and   his   morality   complete.      He 
somewhat  resembles  Ezekiel,  one  of  the  ten- 
derest  of  all  the  prophets,  who  seems  to  shrink 
in  a  kind  of  horror  from  allowing  that  God 
can  be  moved  by  pity  for  men.    The  word  of 
the  Lord,  as  he  hears  it,  promises  acts  of 
compassion,  but  always  goes  on  to  say  that 
these  will  be  done,  not  for  the  sake  of  men, 
but  for  the  glory  of  the  Lord  who  does  them  ; 


% 


74   PLATO   AND   CHRISTIANITY    ii 

the  prophet  who  demands  unselfishness  in  men, 
represents  God  as  altogether  self-occupied, 
because  he  dare  not  commit  himself  to  the 
doctrine  of  Divine  Love,  which  must  be 
blasphemous  if  it  is  not  true.  So  Plato 
leaves  us  at  the  last  strangely  cold.  We  do 
not  want  to  live  in  his  Ideal  State ;  it  would 
be  dull  and  mechanical.  We  do  want  to 
feel  the  emotions  of  pity  and  tenderness  which 
he  regards  as  weakness.  His  absolute  morality 
is  in  the  end  repellent,  because  the  revelation 
which  alone  can  give  it  attractive  power  had 
not  yet  been  granted  to  men. 


/ 


t 


/ 

1/ 


.4 


I 


LECTURE  III 

PLATO   AND    CHRISTIANITY 

The  aim  of  this  Lecture  is  to  suggest  a 
number  of  points  in  which  Plato  approaches 
or  prepares  for  the  Christian  interpretation  of 
life.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  whole 
of  his  moral  and  political  philosophy  is  con- 
structed  against  the  background  of  a  behef  m 
human  immortahty.  No  doubt  this  beUef  as 
it  arose  among  the  Pharisees  had  a  more 
direct  influence  upon  primitive  Christian 
thought,  but  it  has  often  been  pointed  out 
that  the  existence  of  the  Greek  conception 
of  immortahty  was  one  of  the  main  factors 
enabling  the  Church  to  survive  the  disappoint- 
ment due  to  the  postponement  of  the  Second 
Coming.  The  Jewish  form  of  the  belief  had 
been,  at  least  to  a  considerable  extent,  materi- 
alistic, as  is  shown  by  the  question  of  the 

75 


^L 


76   PLATO  AND   CHRISTIANITY  iii 

Sadducees.    The  Eesurrection  of  the  body  in 
a  very  literal  sense  was  anticipated.      But 
Christians  who  had  died  in  the  faith  were 
becoming  very  many  and  their  bodies  were 
undergoing  the  ordinary  process  of  corruption. 
The  Resurrection  hope,   as  Pharisaism  had 
tended  to  encourage  it,  was  becoming  almost 
untenable.      It   would   appear   that   in   the 
Church  of  Corinth  there  was  a  party  who 
called  themselves  the  ''  Spirituals,"  who  main- 
tained a  behef  in  purely  spiritual  immortality 
and  were  liable  in  consequence  to  ignore  the 
body  and  all  morality  that  is  immediately 
concerned  with  the  body.    Against  them  St. 
Paul  has  to  strive,  but  he  definitely  concedes 
that  the  crude  form  of  the  Pharisaic  hope  must 
be  abandoned.    "  I  admit  this  point,"  he  sayp 
(for  that  is  the  force  of  the  Greek  words), 
"that   flesh   and   blood   cannot  inherit   the 
Kingdom    of    God."i    In    his    own    earUer 
writings  he   had   spoken  in  terms  at  least 
suggestive  of  a  crudely  physical  resurrection, 
but  in  his  later  works  the  terms  appropriate 
to  the  Greek  view  become  more  frequent. 
To  die  is  now  apparently  forthwith  to  be  at 

^  I  Cor.  XV.  60. 


1 

i 


III   PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANTlv   79 

home  with  the  Lord.^  Plato  cannot^  indrcd, 
be  given  the  credit  for  the  whole  of  the  Greek 
doctrine  of  immortaUty,  but  his  teaching  in  "77 
this  matter  was  of  immense  importance.  Let 
us  then  follow  out  the  steps  of  his  main  argu- 
ments on  the  subject. 

It  would  appear  from  the  Apology  that 
Socrates  was  an  agnostic  on  this  subject ; 
to  die  may  be  to  pass  to  a  better  life  or  it 
may  be  to  pass  into  nothingness  ;  he  is  only 
sure  it  cannot  be  a  passage  to  anything  evil, 
for  "  it  is  not  possible  that  evil  should  happen 
to  a  good  man  in  Hfe  or  in  death,  nor  is  his 
welfare  neglected  by  the  gods  "  (40  c-41  d).  In 
the  Phaedo,  however,  the  doctrine  of  immor- 
tality is  asserted  and  defended.  Let  us  attend 
to  the  various  arguments  which  Plato  advances 
on  behalf  of  it.  (1)  The  first  is  this  :  All 
things  that  have  opposites  are  generated  out 
of  those  opposites  ;  greater  from  less,  sleep 
from  waking,  death  from  Hfe,  and — ^we  may 
infer  by  analogy — hfe  from  death  ;  our  souls 
therefore  must  have  existed  in  Hades  before 
our  birth  in  order  to  be  born  into  Hfe  (70  d- 
72  d).     (In  passing  we  notice  that  Plato  thus   y 

1 II  Cor.  V,  8. 


', 


jL  V 


y 


.ATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY   iii 

assumes  life  before  birth  and  life  after  death 
to  stand  and  fall  together  ;  what  he  is  really 
73  concerned  with  is  the  capacity  of  the  soul  to 
exist  independently  of  the  body.)  This  rather 
unconvincing  argument  from  analogy  is  re- 
inforced by  the  insistence  that  if  there  is  no 
return  from  death  to  Ufe,  then,  inasmuch  as 
all  that  Uves  passes  into  death,  a  time  must 
come  when  life  is  extinct  and  the  whole  uni- 
verse is  dead,  which  Plato  regards  as  incon- 
ceivable (72  b,  c).  (Here  we  must  note  that 
the  permanence  of  Ufe  is  assumed,  but,  still 
more  important,  the  possibiHty  of  new  creation 
is  not  even  contemplated ;  in  the  Republic 
it  is  even  more  definitely  excluded  (611  a)). 

(2)  The  second  argument  is  purely  Platonic  ; 
it  is  concerned  with  his  doctrine  that  know- 
ledge is^  Recollection.  We  never  saw  perfect 
equality  or  perfect  straightness  ;  yet  we  have 
the  thought  of  them.  How  did  we  acquire  it  ? 
It  must  be  because  we  saw  them  in  a  life 
before  birth,  and  the  approximately  straight 
lines,  the  approximately  equal  magnitudes, 
whch  we  see  in  this  physical  world,  revive 
the  recollection  of  the  ideal  which  before 
birth  we  had  apprehended.     So  the  soul  must 


■  1 
f/ 


III    PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY   79 

have  existed  before  birth  to  have  received  that 
apprehension  (72  d-77  a).  "  But  this  does  not 
prove  that  the  soul  continues  to  exist  after 
death."  Yes  it  does,  if  we  combine  it  with 
what  was  said  above  about  the  generation  of 
opposites  from  opposites  (77  c-77  d). 

(3)  A  brief  dialectical  argument  is  here 
introduced  to  controvert  the  notion  that  the 
soul  may  at  death  be  dissolved  into  its  parts. 
Th^.£aulia_fiiB[iple,  and  therefore  indissoluble. 
But  Plato's  own  grasp  of  the  unity  of  the^oul 
was  at  this  date  less  complete  and  less  well 
grounded  than  in  later  times  (77  e-81  cJl 

(4)  That  Plato  attached  only  small  import- 
ance to  this  argument  is  shown  by  the  fact 
that  Cebes,  one  of  the  interlocutors,  admits 
that  Socrates  has  proved  the  soulto  be  longer- 
lived  thanthe  body,  but  no|jhat  itjsjeternal ; 
and  unless  it  is  eternal,  it  may  perish  at  any 
occasion  of  death,  even  though  it  has  pre- 
viously survived  both  death  and  birth  many 
times,  and  indeed  may  in  any  one  life  or 
period  of  incarnation  perish  before  its  body — 
just  as  a  man  outlives  many  coats,  but  his 
last  coat  outhves  him  (86  e-88  b). 

This  drawslrom  Socrates  what  is  at  this 


•ir'""^, 


8a   PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY   iii 


stage  Plato's  last  argument  on  the  subject. 
We  noticed  before  that  opgosites  arise  from 
one  another  ;  the  great  becomes  small,  the 
hot  becomes  cold,  and  so  forth.  But  the 
opposite  ideas  do  not_pass_inta  one  another ; 
for  instance,  greatness  does  not  become  small- 
ness  nor  does  heat  become  chill.  Further, 
entities  whose  nature  it  is  to  possess  one  idea, 
never  admit  the  opposite ;  snow  cannot 
become  hot,  nor  fire  become  cold.  Now  it  is 
the  function  of  the  soul  to  make  alive  ;  for 
life  and  death  are  distinguished  by  the  presence 
or  absence  of  soul ;  in  other  words,  the  soul  as 
such  possesses  life,  and  therefore  cannot 
admit  death.  The  soul  thereforgjs  deathless 
and  imperishable  (102d-106d). 

That  is,  in  the  Phaedo,  Plato's  final  argu- 
ment ;  it  is  plain  that  it  has  no  cogency.  It 
does  indeed  prove  that  there  cannot  be  a  dead 
soul ;  the  soul  cannot  be,  and  be  dead,  any 
more  than  the  fire  can  be,  and  be  cold.  But 
the  fire  may  go  out ;  and  Plato^ha^  not  proved 
that  the  soul  cannot  go  out,  and  altogether 
cease  to  exist.  He  establishes  that  the  soul 
is,  in  one  sense,  deathless  (dOdvuTov,  105  e), 
but  this  sense  is  such  as  to  make  illegitimate 


III    PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY   81 

his  further  conclusion  that,   if  deathless,   it 
must  be  imperishable  (dvtaXeOpov,  106  c). 

I  have  spent  time  on  the  arguments  of  this 
Dialogue  because  they  show  the  kind  of  diffi- 
culty under  which  the  whole  subject  labours 
when  handled  from  the  philosophic  point  of 
view,  but  also  because  Plato  points  unerringly 
to  the  vital  matter  when  he  says  that  what  we 
need  is,  not  a  proof  of  mere  survival,  but  of  \ 
the  eternity  of  the  soul.  Survival  for  a 
limited  period  only  postpones  the  evil,  and 
utterly  fails  to  safeguard  the  interests,  whether 
ethical  or  sentimental,  which  cause  men 
to  care  for  immortality. 

It  is  also  interesting  that  in  this  very 
Dialogue  almost  any  reader  feels  that  Plato 
trusts  more  to  the  actual  behaviour  of  Socrates 
at  the  moment  of  death  than  to  his  arguments 
just  before,  to  produce  conviction.  Crito  asks 
how  Socrates  wishes  to  be  buried.  "  How  you 
Hke,"  says  Socrates,  "  if  you  can  catch  me. 
But  I  am  going  away."  He  will  not  wait 
till  the  last  possible  moment  to  drink  the  hem- 
lock. As  the  chill  creeps  up  his  body,  he 
uncovers  his  face  and  says  to  Crito—"  I  owe 
Arclepius  a  cock  ;  pay  the  debt,  don't  forget." 

G 


* 

\ 


82    PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY   iii 

The  cQck  was  the  offering  of  poor  men  to 
Arclepius,  the  god  of  heahng,  which  they 
presented  on  recovery  from  an  illness  ;  So- 
crates died  poor,  for  he  had  taken  no  fees  such 
as  the  Sophists  required  ;  so  it  is  only  the 
poor  man's  offering  that  he  can  maker  But 
his  death  is  a  recovery  and  involves  some 
offering  to  the  god  of  healing  ;  he  is  recovering 
from  the  fitful  fever  of  life  (115  c-118). 

In  th^^ReTmblic  ^e  has  another  argument. 
Nothmg^^penshes  but  by  its  own  disease  :  if 
a  man  dies  of  poison  the  poison  does  indeed 
kill  the  body,  but  onlv  bv  first  throwing  it 
out  of  gear,  and  introducing  into  it  disease  of 
its  own.  Rut  the  disPflsp.  or  p.vil  of  the  soul 
i_s  injustice  ;  and  iniuatice  mflnifestly  ant^a  nnt 
kill  the  soul,  for  it  may  co-exist  with  great 
vitality  (608d-611b). 

Plato  never  repeated  the  arguments  for 
immortaUty  which  he  elaborated  in  the  Phaedo 
and  the  Republic.  But  in  the  Phaedrus,  a 
Dialogue  of  about  the  same  date  as  the  Republic, 
he  has  an  argument  of  a  wholly  different  kind. 
Here  he  argues  that  because  the  soul  is  the 
source  of  its  own  movement,  or,  in  other  words, 
is  essential  activity  and  does  not  only  become 


III    PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY   83 

active  through  communicated  impulse  from 
without,  it  has  in  itself  the  principle  of  eternal 
life.  But  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  argument 
is  intended  to  prove  the  eternity  of  every 
individual  soul  as  such  or  only  that  of  the 
spiritual  principle  in  the  universe.  It  is  true 
that  it  is  only  vaUd  as  apphed  to  the  latter. 
And  this  seems  to  have  been  recognised  by 
Plato  himself,  for  in  the  Timceus  he  has  come 
round  to  the  point  of  view,  which  in  this 
Lecture  I  should  desire  to  urge,  namely,  that 
the  soul  is  not  immortal  in  its  own  right,  but 
has  immortahty  conferred  upon  it  by  God. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  in  this  Dialogue 
he  comes  very  near  to  the  Christian  doctrine 
of  creation.  He  is  attempting  to  explain  the 
origin  of  the  world  ;  God,  he  says,  is  good, 
and  therefore  free  from  all  jealousy ;  conse- 
quently He  desired  that  there  should  be  as 
many  beings  as  possible  to  share  His  perfection 
(29  e).  Upon  the  spiritual  beings  whom  He 
thus  creates  He  confers  the  eternity  which 
belongs  of  right  to  Him  alone  (41  a,  b).  You 
will  see  how  close  this  is  to  the  Christian 
doctrine  that  God  is  Love,  and  created  a 
universe  on  which  to  lavish  His  love. 

6  2 


^84)PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY   iii 

Plato,  then,  consistently  believes  in  human 
immortality,  though  the  arguments  with  which 
he  supports  that  belief  vary  at  different  dates  ; 
and  the  eternal  world  is  for  him  at  all  times 
a  sphere  of  judgment.  Three  of  his  great 
Dialogues — ^the  Gorgias,  the  Phaedo,  and  the 
Republic — end  with  a  myth  concerning  the 
passage  ot  the  soul  from  this  world  to  the 
other  ;  and  each  contains  a  vision  of  judgment. 
As  we  have  seen,  it  is  only  the  incurable  who 
are  punished  eternally  :  some  such  he  believes 
there  are.  They  are  used  for  the  only  good 
purpose  they  can  any  longer  serve,  namely, 
to  warn  others  ;  they  are  past  the  point  at 
which  it  is  possible  to  treat  them  as  ends  in 
themselves,  and  it  becomes  legitimate  to 
regard  them  as  means  only.  We  may  not 
assent  to  this,  yet  we  cannot  but  recognise 
that,  terrible  as  the  judgment  is  in  Plato's 
presentation,  his  conception  of  God  is  more 
merciful  than  that  which  has  many  times 
been  presented  as  the  doctrine  of  Christianity. 

This  naturally  leads  to  our  second  main 
topic,  which  is  Theology  proper.  Here  his 
leading  principle  is  very  simple,  though  it 
leads  to  immense  perplexities  ;  for  the  leading 


III    PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY   85 

principle  is  just  this  :    that  God  is  good,  and 
therefore  the  author  of  ^ood  only  (Republic, 
379.  a-c).      This  dogma   is  indeed  Jaid  down 
primarily  with  direct  reference  to  elementary 
education!    Plato  is  consideiTng  what  is  to  be* 
done  with  the  mythology  which  constitutes 
the  main  part  of  literary  education  for  Greek 
children.     He  agrees  with  Adeimantus  that 
the  stories  told  about  the  gods  are  demorahsing. 
BuLit  is  not  only  for  the  sake  of  the  moral 
influence   upon   the   children   that   they   are 
banished  ;    they  are  also  untrue.     This  does 
not  mean  merely  that  they  state  events  which 
have  not  happened,  but  that  ^.eyconvey  a 
f^lse  conception  of  God.     The  former^EiId^of 
untruth    Plato   is    qmte    ready   to   support ; 
there  are,  he  says,  two  kinds  of  story,  and  in 
education  we  begin  with  what  is  false.     By 
this,  of  course,  he  means  that  we  begin  with 
fables,  which  in  an  historical  point  of  view 
are  not  expressions  of  truth,  but  which  are  so 
written  as  to  leave  upon  the  mind  the  true 
impression.     These  must  be  written  for  our 
children  in  the  Hght  of  the  dogma  stated  above. 
From  this  it  follows  that  the  Divine  must 
never  be  associated  with  what  is  dishonourable, 


/ 


!  I 


86    PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY   iii 

and  that  God  must  not  be  represented  as 
appearing  in  assumed  forms  ;  for  the  motives 
which  may  occasionally  justify  lying  can  have 
no  application  to  Him,  and  to  appear  in  an 
assumed  form  is  virtually  to  lie.  So  far  as 
moral  theology  goes,  all  may  be  plain  saiUng  ; 
but  when  we  come  to  the  more  philosophical 
questions,  difficulties  begin.  For  in  this  very 
passage  he  admits  that  if  God  is  the  author 
oT  good  only,  he  must  be  the  author 


th^n  halt  our  experience,  since  the  evil  things 
in  life  are  many  more  than  the  good  things. 
And  yet  side  by  side  with  this  we  have  the 
assertion  that  God  or  the  Idea  of  Good  is  the 
controUmg  principle  in  the  universe.  'Plato 
does  not  m  any  way  exphcitly  deal  with  the 
problem  of  evil  on  any  extensive  scale,  but 
it  is  clear  that  somehow  or  other  he  connects 
it  with  limitation  in  time  and  space,  or  in 
other  words  with  finitude  generally.  He  was 
far  too  real  in  all  his  thought  to  be  content 
with  caUing  it  mere  negation  or  a  *'  shadow 
where  Ught  ought  to  be  "  ;  yet  he  would  seem 
to  regard  it  as  arising  from  the  failure  of  this 
temporal  world  to  embody  perfectly  the  eternal 
principles  or  ideas  which  in  their  imperfect 


w 


III   PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY   87 

manner  its  constituent  elements  resemble.  It 
is  clear  enough  from  this  that  Plato  is  pressing 
on,  as  it  were,  towards  a  conception  of  God 
akin  to  the  Christian,  and  we  have  already 
seen  that  his  doctrine  of  the  Creation  in  the 
TimcBus  comes  as  near  as  it  possibly  can  to 
the  attribution  of  the  Creation  to  Divine 
Love. 

We  have  seen  so  far  thfiit  with  rr[;;nrrl  to 
the  two  fundamental  problems,  the_ 


of  God  and  the  destmv  of  Man.  Vh 
curiously  near  thft  Chrisfiii^n  ]iniiitiinn  The 
same  can  be  said  of  his  noncftption  of  moral 
excellence.  We  saw  in  tracing  the  argument 
of  the  Republic  that  in  his  hands  Justice  is 
changed  from  anything  like  a  selfish  claim  of 
rights  into  an  unselfish  rendering  x)f  service ; 
and  yet  here  too  he  just  fails  to  take  the  last 


step,  for  he  entirely  fails  to  appreciate  the  ex- 
cellence  ot  sacnrice]  This  is  niost  conspicuous 
in  the  answer  which  he  gives  to  the  ques- 
tion  whether  we  shall  not  be  injuring  our 
philosopher-kings  in  calling  upon  them  to 
abandon,  for  a  time  at  least,  their  contempla- 
tion of  eternal  truth  and  condescend  to  the 
administration  of  political  affairs.    His  answer 


1 


J 


88    PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY   iii 


III   PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY   89 


is  that  in  the  State  which  we  have  founded 
there  will  be  no  injury,  for  the  capacity  to 
contemplate  eternal  truths  will  itself  have 
been  developed  by  the  society  which  they  are 
called  upon  to  serve,  and  we  shall  only  be 
making  a  just  demand  upon  just  men  who  for 
this  reason  will  feel  no  resentment  at  it. 
But  this  would  not  be  true  with  regard  to  any 
actual  State.  There  the  philosopher  has  won 
his  intellectual  vision  in  spite  of  rather  than 
by  the  assistance  of  society  ;  he  has  attained 
by  his  own  efforts  alone;  he  owes  society, 
therefore,  no  debt,  and  would  not  be  right  to 
leave  the  better  life  of  contemplation  and 
descend  to  the  inferior  life  of  action  (519  d- 
520  b). 

There  are  two  obvious  comments  to  make 
on  this.  The  first  is  that,  like  so  many 
idealists,  Plato  ignores  to  a  great  extent  the 
good  elements  present  even  in  contemporary 
Greek  society.  It  must  have  looked  as  if 
throughout  his  life  Socrates  had  been  opposed 
by  nearly  all  the  forces  of  the  time,  but 
Socrates  himself  could  not  have  emerged  in  a 
barbarous  state.  He  stood  indeed  high  above 
the  level  of  contemporary  life,  but  he  could 


/I.  I 


(\ 


only  reach  that  eminence  by  using  what  was 
good  in  that  very  Hfe,  and  in  the  Crito  we  may 
see  his  conviction  of  a  debt  to  obey  the  laws 
of  Athens  even  when  they  pass  upon  him  an 
unjust  sentence,  because  of  all  that  they  have 
done  for  him  in  his  hfe  hitherto. 

This  leads  to  the  second  comment,  which 
refers  to  his  exclusion  of  sacrifice.  This  is  an 
instance  of  what  is  perpetually  discoverable  in 
his  writings ;  his  theory  falls  short  of  his  in- 
tuition. We  may  mention  two  t%er  examples. 
In  the  tenth  Book  of  the  Republic,  he  says  that, 
whereas  the  artificer  in  making  any  material 
object  imitates  the  eternal  idea,  an  artist 
only  imitates  the  imitation  (595  a-598  d) ;  but 
in  Book  V  he  said  that  we  do  not  blame  an 
artist  who  depicts  a  face  more  beautiful  than 
any  actual  human  face  either  is  or  ever  could  \ 
be  (472  d).  In  other  words,  when  he  forgets 
to  theorise,  he  knows  that  the  artist  is  really 
representing  the  eternal  idea  far  more  ade- 
quately than  the  artificer,  or  even  than  nature  ; 
but  when  he  comes  to  expHcit  theory  he  falls 
short  of  that  intuition. 

Again,  in  theory  he  regards  pity  as  a  weak- 
ness ;  he  will  not  have  Achilles,  who  is  a  hero. 


90   PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY   iii 

represented  as  mourning  for  his  friend  ;  for 
the  better  a  man  is  the  more  self-sufficient  he 
will  be,  and  therefore  the  more  indifferent  to 
the  life  and  death  of  his  friends  (387  d-388  d). 
He  forbids  us  to  witness  certain  kinds  of 
drama  because  they  appeal  to  and  develop 
the  impulse  of  pity  and  compassion  which  are 
weaknesses  in  men  (605  c-607  a).  And  yet  he 
wrote  the  Phaedo  ;  and  we  know  that  in  his 
heart  he  must  have  valued  the  pathos  of  the 
scene  described. 

So  it  is  with  regard  to  sacrifice  ;   according 
to  his  theory,  to  ask  a  man  to  forfeit  sofflg^ 
self -culture  for  the  sake  of  social  service  will 
be  wrong  unless  it  can  be  (l^liilliK^d  uiii  pciviiio**t> 
of  a  debt ;    even  tnen,  while  no  iniury,  itig 
still    from    the    in3ividuars    point    of    view* 
regrettable.     Thisis""air3u^ToTEeTaStrt!r^ 


III   PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY  relN 


his  mind  has  never  grasped  that  for  a  man  ta 
sacrifice  himself  for  the  community  is  good, 
not  only  for  the  community,  but  for  the  man 
ton  ;  hft  never  prasped  the  excellence  that  is 
in  sacrifice  itself,  and  he  is  trying  to  judge  it 
by  an  outside  standard  ;  but  he  knows  that 
the  whole  life  of  Socrates  was  a  sacrifice,  and 
still  more  bi3  death.    He  knows  that  he  chose 


to  die  rather  than  live  after  an  abandonment 
of  his  mission,  which  would  suggest  that  his 
mission  had  been  false,  and  even  rather  than 
escape  from  prison  when  the  duties  of  good 
citizenship  called  upon  him  to  remain  and 
submit  to  the  sentence  ;  and  again  his  heart 
told  him  that  this  sacrifice  was  excellent, 
though  his  theory  lags  behind. 

In  short,  we  feel  that,  noble  as  is  the  pictitpfe 
of^  Justice,  it  is  still  not  loyg^  lor  love  finds^ 
sacnlice  its  most  natural  expression  and  does' 
not  stop  to  balance  up  the  good  abandoned 
the  good  secured,  for  it  knows  that  15 


an 


V 


itself,  active  in  sacrifice  as  it  is,  it  has  a  value 
greater  than  either.  /It  is  just  this  failure 
to  pass  from  justice  to  Igxe-'Which  prevents 
Plato  from  finally  rounding  off  his  system ; 
for  the  Idea  of  Good,  as  we  have  seen,  is 
justice  in  the  universe.  All  the  parts  exist 
to  serve  the  whole  ;  so  far  so  good ;  but  he 
never  went  on  to  say  that  the  whole  exists' 
for  service  of  the  parts ;  nor  did  anyone  else 
say  so  until  God  came  into  the  world  and 
shewed  His  love  alike  by  life  and  by  death. 

It  is  now  obvious  that  Plato's  works  afford  a 
definite  anticipation  of  much  that  Christianity 


> 


v 


ire  /         / 


92    PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY   iii 


III    PLATO  AND   CHRISTIANITY   98 


gave  to  the  world.  Partly,  this  is  apparent 
in  the  actual  conclusions  which  he  reaches, 
still  more  in  the  fact  that  he  stops  short  at 
a  point  where  satisfaction  is  not  forthcoming. 
He  represents  at  once  an  approach  to  the  per- 
fect satisfaction  of  the  soul,  and  a  confession 
of  failure  to  attain  to  it  until  there  was  given 
something  that  was  then  not  yet  given.  But 
more  important  even  than  this  is  the  prepara- 
tion which  he  accomplishes  in  what  may  be 
called  the  spirit  of  thought.  His  quite  reckless 
idealism,  his  relentless  criticism,  and  his 
combination  of  passion  with  the  cold  light 
of  reason,  kindle  desire  for  a  truth  which 
shall  be  able  to  stand  firm  without  artificial 
supports,  and  can  satisfy,  not  only  the  intellect, 
but  the  entire  soul.  At  Alexandria  the  spirit 
of  Plato  met  with  the  tradition  of  Judaism, 
and  in  Philo  we  find  a  deliberate  attempt  to 
combine  his  writings  with  the  Old  Testament. 
Plato  had  not  himself  made  any  prominent 
use  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos,  which 
began  with  HeracUtus  and  became  the  domi- 
nant element  in  Stoicism  ;  but  his  analysis 
of  the  soul,  with  the  conception  of^^^isttee 
.realised  only  when  the  rational  element  is 


ii 


supreme  and  allots  to  each  of  the  other  ele- 
ments  tneir  sphere  oi  action,  and  the  expanst?^ 
of  justice  into  the  Idea  of  Good  as  govermng 
the  universe,  is  substantially  very  near  the 
Logos  doctrine.  For  the  Logos  alike  in 
Heraclitus  and  the  Stoics  is  the  supreme 
rational  principle  by  which  the  world  is 
governed.  This  Philo  combines  with  "the 
word  of  the  Lord  "  in  the  Old  Testament,  the 
word  which  is  the  expression — and  therefore 
revelation  —  of  the  transcendent  God  of 
Judaism ;  so  that  everything  is  ready,  so  far  as 
intellectual  apparatus  is  concerned,  for  St. 
John's  interpretation  of  Christ  when  He  comes. 
Moreover,  it  is  the  Platonism  of  Alexandria 
which  lies  behind  the  whole  theology  of  St. 
Athanasius  and  provides  the  language  in  which 
the  Nicene  Creed  and  the  great  orthodox 
formularies  generally  are  drawn  up.  In  fact, 
at  the  time  of  the  Council  of  Nicea,  it  may, 
broadly  speaking,  be  said  that  to  accept  Plato 
as  philosophical  master  was  almost  essential 
to  orthodoxy,  while  Aristotle  was  undoubtedly 
regarded  with  suspicion.  All  through  the 
great  formative  period,  while  the  human  mind 
was  attempting  to  master  more  and  more 


) 


94  PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY   iii 


elements  of  Christian  truth,  Plato  was  its 
guide.  When  this  task  was  for  the  time  ac- 
compUshed,  Aristotle,  whose  supreme  genius 
lay  mainly  in  analysis,  took  Plato's  place; 
for  the  work  now  to  be  done  was  not  so  much 
the  conquest  of  new  fields  as  the  consoKdation 
of  that  which  had  been  won,  and  the  ordering 
of  it ;  so  medieval  theology,  which  is  more 
concerned  to  correlate  what  is  known  than  to 
reach  new  knowledge,  is  Aristotelian  rather 
than  Platonic  in  principle. 

It  is  curious  to  modern  readers  that  the 
Dialogue  which  had  most  influence  in  the  early 
times  was  the  Timceus.  This  is  partly  because 
it  hints  at  certain  Christian  ideas  (for  people 
have  traced  in  it  an  outHne  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity,  and  the  Universe,  which  is  called 
the  "  Son  of  God,"  is  also  expressly  called 
"  Only-begotten  "),  and  also  partly  because  of 
the  relatively  accidental  fact  that  of  it  alone 
a  Latin  translation  was  available.  But  the 
ItLconception  in  the  Rejmblic  of  a  City 


in  Heaven  of  which  we  may  even  now  be 

trz ' ' '' 

citizens,  also  had  enormous  influence.    When 
St.  Paul  says  "  our  citizenship  is  in  Heaven  "^ 

^  Philippians  iii,  20, 


III   PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITX^Ia^ 

he  is  talking  pure  Platonism  ;  when  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  speaks  of  the  earthly  taber- 

tabernacle  in  the  Heavens,  of  which  it  is  an 


imperfect  copy,  it  is  speaking  in  a  wavT5 
which  the  Platonic  theory  of  Ideas  had  pre- 
pared. But  perhaps  more  important  than  pro- 
viding  material  of  expression  to  each  of  these 
writers,  was  the  service  which  Plato  rendered 
to  the  Church  through  St.  Augustine.  When 
Rome,  which  had  called  itself  the  Eternal  City 
and  had  been  regarded  as  such  by  all  civiUsa- 
tion,  fell  before  the  invasion  of  the  Goths,  St. 
Augustine  was  able  to  rally  the  spiritual 
forces  of  Christendom  in  loyalty  to  the  Eternal 
City  of  God.  Of  course  his  interpretation  of 
this  is  thoroughly  Christian,  but  the  idea 
behind  it  originates  with  Plato ;  and  his 
discussion  of  civilisation  as  displaying  two 
tendencies — the  one  towards  selfishness  and 
antagonism,  the  other  towards  co-operation 
and  fellowship — ^is  drawn  straight  from  the 
Republic  itself. 

Before  leaving  this  part  of  the  subject,  it 
is  worth  while  to  point  out  that  the  two  strands 
in  Plato's  thought  with  regard  to  the  eternal 


96   PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY   iii 

realities  correspond  to  two  permanent  and 
permanently  different  interpretations  of  the 
universe.  [When  he  speaks  of  the  separation 
of  the  Ideas  from  tneir  particulars  he  is  using 
Ifae  language  of  ordinary  Mysticism ;  the 
sei^ker  afteT  truth"^r  reality  must  turn  his 
Back  on  this  worldand  grasp  the  eternal  in  a 
pure  intuition.J  "Wl^n  he  speaks  of  the  par- 
ticular as  participatin^Sji.  the  IdeaTor^ofthe 
Tdea  as  present  in  the  pammilar  (as  in  the 
Symposium  and  the  Phaedo),  he  is  on  the  verge 
of  that  sacramental  view  of  the  physical 
world  which  may  be  said  to  constitute  Chris- 
tian mysticism,  and  to  be  the  inevitable  result 
of  belief  in  the  Incarnation.^  The  former 
leads  to  Plotinus,  the  latter  to  St.  John. 

It  is  curious  to  notice  how  close  is  the 
parallel  between  the  Papal  theory  of  medieval 
Europe  and  the  outline  of  Plato's  Ideal  State. 
In  that  Ideal  State  there  were  three  main 
classes — the  philosopher-kings  who  governed 
in  the  light  of  eternal  truth ;  the  warrior  class 
obedient  to   the   kings,   and   fighting   either 

^  This  does  not  turn  its  back  upon  the  creature  in  seeking 
the  Creator,  but  adores  the  Creator  in  His  creatures.  It 
must  be  admitted  that  many  mystics  who  were  members 
of  the  Church  have  belonged  to  the  other  school. 


« 


IP 


III   PLATO  AND   CHRISTIANITY   97 

for  the  defence  of  the  State  or  for  the  sake  of 
civilisation  against  barbarism  ;  and  the  crafts- 
men who  produced  the  necessities  and  com- 
forts of  life  generally.     So  in  the  medieval 
theory,  at  any  rate  in  its  Papal  form,  there 
stood  at  the  head  of  Christendom  the  Pope, 
whose  voice  was  to  be  taken  as  the  voice  of 
God.    Below   him   and   under   his   supreme 
authority,  spiritually  if  not  secularly,  stood 
the  kings  of  the  nations,  each  having  subor- 
dinate to  him  the  feudal  barons,  just  as  the 
kings    were   themselves   subordinate    to   the 
Pope.    The  main  concern  of  the  barons  at 
least  was  with  war,  and  the  pursuit  of  such 
pleasures   and   exercises   as   were   fitted   for 
warriors.     Below  these  again  came  the  mass 
of  citizens,  whether  serfs  or  free,  mainly  con- 
cerned in  the  different  departments  of  material 
production.    Europe  under  Innocent  III  was  - 
an  attempt  to  set  up  something  remarkably 
like  Plato's  Ideal  State ;  but  of  course  it  had 
not  the  two  great  cementing  virtues  of  Tem- 
perance and  Justice  ;    it  lacked  Temperance 
as  Plato  defines  it,  inasmuch  as  the  two  lower 
classes  consisting,  one  of  kings  and  barons, 
and  the  other  of  citizens  generally,  did  not 


9S    PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY   iii 

confine    themselves    to    the    performance    of 
their  own  functions,  but  perpetually  invaded 
the  prerogatives  both  of  one  another  and  of 
the  supreme  ruler.     The  system  also  lacked 
Justice  in  so  far  as  the  Pope  himself  had  not, 
as  indeed  he  could  not  have,  that  complete 
knowledge  of  the  ultimate  truth  which  alone 
can  enable  the  philosopher-king  to  govern  a 
city  by  the  light  of  it.     It  is  made  clear  in 
the  Republic  itself  that  unless  the  philosopher 
is  a  perfect  philosopher  he  had  much  better 
not  be  king.  ^Political  power  and  philosophic 
insight  can  only  safely  be  combined  when  the 
philosophic  insight  is  absolute^  And  of  course 
it  is  for  precisely  this  reason  that  the  Papacy 
broke  down.     The  Papacy  failed  chiefly  be- 
cause the  Popes  themselves  were  not  content 
with  spiritual  authority  derived  from  their 
knowledge  of  truth,  but  endeavoured  to  back 
their  spiritual  authority  by  worldly  power,  and 
so  first  came  under,  and  then  fell  before,  the 
temptation  of  worldliness. 

But  while  there  is  this  close  parallel  between 
the  medieval  theory  of  Christendom  and  the 
Platonic  Ideal  State,  it  is  also  true  that  the 
temper  of  mind  in  these  ages  was  rather 


m 


III    PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY   99 

Aristotelian  than  Platonic.    Indeed,  this  whole 
scheme  of  government  is  an  application  to 
politics  of  the  subsumptive  logic  of  the  Prior 
Analytics — the  logic  of  pure  deduction,  which 
the  medieval  scholastics  endeavoured  on  all 
sides  to  apply.     For  the  whole  principle  of 
this  logic  is  to  arrange  terms  in  pyramids ; 
at  the  apex  the  summum  genus  ;   below  this 
the  various  genera  or  kinds ;    below  each  of 
these  again  its  constituent  species  ;  below  each 
of  these  the  sub-species,  and  at  last  the  indi- 
vidual   facts    or    persons.     All    medievahsts 
regarded  society  in  much  this  way,  but  there 
were  two  rival  pyramids.     According  to  the 
Papal  scheme  the  Pope  actually  represented 
God  on  earth ;    of  him  held  the  Emperor ; 
the  various  kings  held  of  the  Emperor ;    the 
barons  of  the  kings  ;   and  so  on  till  we  reach 
the  serfs.     According  to  the  Imperial  theory, 
God  is  Himself  the  apex  of  the  p3rramid  ;  the 
Pope  and  Emperor,  who  stand  on  a  level, 
both  hold  of  him,  and  from  them  proceed  the 
authorities  of  the  ecclesiastical  and  temporal 
officers.  [It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the 
first  philosophic  attempt  to  arrive  at  a  theory 
of  society  from  another  basis  simply  inverts 


100  PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY  iii 


the  same  process,  and  beginning  with  the 
isolated  individuals  proceeds  to  construct  a 
pyramid  with  absolute  monarchy  at  its  head. 
The  influence  of  this  pyramidal  scheme  upon 
Hobbe's  "  Leviathan  "  is  made  perfectly  plain 
by  the  frontispiece  to  that  work. 

The  theology  of  the  Middle  Ages  also  is 
entirely  AristoteUan.  St.  Thomas  Aquinas, 
the  supreme  expression  of  medieval  thought, 
represents  the  attempt  to  co-ordinate  the  whole 
of  Christian  doctrine  by  means  of  the  Aris- 
toteUan logic,  as  that  logic  was  then  understood. 
/The  Renaissance  was  no  doubt  a  movement 
to  which  very  many  causes  contributed  ;  but 
one  main  element  in  it  was  the  revival  of  the 
Platonic  spirit  as  against  the  dominant  Aris- 
^totelian.  Plato  again  began  to  be  read,  having 
for  many  centuries  been  almost  forgotten  ; 
and  his  spirit  chimed  in  with  the  aspirations 
of  the  time,  giving  encouragement  to  the 
desire  to  press  forward  into  ^new  fields  of 
thought,  instead  of  being  content  to  move 
round  and  round  the  estabUshed  orthodox 
scheme. 

But  even  during  the  centuries  in  which 
Plato  himself  was  little  known,  his  spirit  had 


III  PLATO  AND  CHRISTIANITY  101 


been  at  work  on  one  most  important  side 
of  theology,  for  there  was  a  steady  stream 
of  Christian  mysticism  whose  fountain  head 
was  St.  Augustine,  and  St.  Augustine  himself 
is  emphatic  with  regard  to  his  debt  to  Platon- 
ism.  From  him  and  through  St.  Bernard 
the  Platonic  tendency  is  maintained  at  least 
so  far  as  concerns  the  aspirations  of  the 
individual  soul. 

But  if  Plato  was  a  considerable  factor  in 
bringing  about  the  Renaissance,  and  in  forming 
the  mind  of  St.  Augustine,  anyone  who  reflects 
how  much  the  Reformation  owed  to  the 
Renaissance  in  spite  of  its  quarrels  with  it, 
and  how  much  Luther  owed  to  St.  Augustine, 
will  see  at  once  how  immensely  great  Plato's 
influence  has  been  upon  the  modern  world. 
This  is,  indeed,  what  might  have  been  expected. 
The  Greek  nation  has  been  the  source  of 
nearly  all  that  is  alive  in  thought  or  civihsation 
as  distinct  from  pure  reUgion,  and  Plato  is 
the  culmination  of  the  Greek  genius.  It  has, 
indeed,  been  said  that  Plato  is  not  a  typical 
Greek  ;  that  is  true,  but  only  because  he  is 
more  Greek  than  all  the  other  Greeks  together. 
In  him  the  intellectual  passion — ^which  is  the 


102  PLATO  AxND  CHRISTIANITY  iii 

conspicuous  mark  of  the  Greek  genius — comes 
not  only  to  flower  but  to  fruit,  which  bursts 
and  scatters  its  seed  broadcast.  Hellenism 
here  comes  to  its  utmost  limits  and  bursts 
them,  and  Plato  is  left  at  last,  wondering 
whether  perhaps  his  Ideal  State  may  not, 
even  as  he  writes,  exist  somewhere  outside 
the  knowledge  of  the  Greeks,  in  what  they 
would  call  a  barbarian  land,  and  with  his 
whole  system  manifestly  incomplete  because 
it  is  waiting  for  just  that  one  final  touch 
— that  one  crowning  glory — which  only 
Christianity  could  give. 


PRIKTKD   IN  GREAT   BRITAIN   BY   R.    Cl-AY  AND  SONS,    LTD., 
•R0NSWICK  STREKT,  STAMFORD  STREET,  S.B.,   AND  BDNOAY,  SUFFOLK. 


By  the 

REV.   WILLIAM  TEMPLE. 

^"p^H^H^t.^^^.    NATION.      The     Bishop 
fs    6d.'net  "'^^  ^^'  '^'^-'5-     Crown  8vo^ 

THE  FAITH  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT 
Six    Lectures      With   an   Introduction   by  Pro- 
^^f^^^  MicHAFL  Sadler.    Crown  8vo.    2S.  6d.  ne^ 
Globe  8vo.  is.  net. 

g.ve  to  the  lectures  a  singular  attraction-  *"  <'"<^"««. 

THE    KINGDOM    OF   GOD.     A  Course  of 

pen  to  disclose  his  thouchts  on   th.  c  k-"    /  7''!>'  "^'"S  ^is 
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of  the  truth  is  fare  in  these"or"Tn*de:3''an;  tys"'  ""  ^"P""^^' 

London:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,   Ltd. 


By  the 

REV.   WILLIAM  TEMPLE, 
^^^OF^cnni^lf^J^^        ^^^  'TRUTH 

?nH  "JR|STIANirY.     Being  University 
and  School  Sermons.    Crown  8vo.    3s.  6d.  net. 

fr.!ht'i''""'/':  Gazette.-^  The  book  is  everywhere  marked  by 
freshness  of  treatment  and  independence  of  thought  and  the 
with  cl^™  :^^^^^^^  which  comS  from  great  matS'combined 
not   f^n^/?  •  .  .  The  sermons,  when  delivered,  could 

not  fail  to  leave  a  permanent  influence  on  those  who  were 
pnvilegexl  to  hear  them;  in  their  printed  form  we  are  sure  That 
the.r  mfluence  will  not  be  less  deep  on  a  wider  congregat^^^^^ 
now  brought  within  their  reach."  congregation 

^^  th^.°p.,??"°?k  SERMONS.  Studies  in 
the  Religion  of  the  Incarnation.  Crown  8vo. 
3S.  od.  net. 

should  say  that  they  are  likely  to  be  long  remembered   "and  to 
be  a  i^rmanent  influence  in  the  lives  of  those  who  ^ulened  to 
them    ,f  they  are  supplementary  to  the  definite  religious  teach 
■ng  wh,ch  no  doubt  the  boys  atRepton  get  under  Mn  Temple  " 


^°  Bel?e^Tn°x  ^     ^  r^l^,**™*^"*  <»'  Christian 
Belief  in  Terms  of  Modern  Thought.    By 

Seven  Oxford  Men:  B.  H.  Streeter,  I?  Brook. 

W.    H.    MoBERLY,    R.    G.    Parsons,    A.    E.    I 

Rawlinson,   N.  S.   Talbot,   W.   Temple.      8vo 

lOS.  od.  net. 

^^Ke^Rr^     ^  ?r'"^y  ^^  ^""^^"  Motive. 

By  the  Rev.  William  Temple  and  Others.     Crown 

^^^*  [In  the  Press. 

London:   MACMILLAN  &  CO.,   Ltd. 


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